Book II

5 of 8 books in The World as Will and Representation, Volume I by Arthur Schopenhauer

Original German

Der Welt als Wille erste Betrachtung: Die Objektivation des Willens.

Nos habitat, non tartara, sed nec sidera coeli: Spiritus, in nobis qui viget, illa facit.

17 Wir haben im ersten Buche die Vorstellung nur als solche, also nur der allgemeinen Form nach, betrachtet. Zwar, was die abstrakte Vorstellung, den Begriff, betrifft, so wurde diese uns auch ihrem Gehalt nach bekannt, sofern sie nämlich allen Gehalt und Bedeutung allein hat durch ihre Beziehung auf die anschauliche Vorstellung, ohne welche sie werth- und inhaltslos wäre. Gänzlich also auf die anschauliche Vorstellung hingewiesen, werden wir verlangen, auch ihren Inhalt, ihre näheren Bestimmungen und die Gestalten, welche sie uns vorführt, kennen zu lernen. Besonders wird uns daran gelegen seyn, über ihre eigentliche Bedeutung einen Aufschluß zu erhalten, über jene ihre sonst nur gefühlte Bedeutung, vermöge welcher diese Bilder nicht, wie es außerdem seyn müßte, völlig fremd und nichtssagend an uns vorüberziehen, sondern unmittelbar uns ansprechen, verstanden werden und ein Interesse erhalten, welches unser ganzes Wesen in Anspruch nimmt.

Wir richten unsern Blick auf die Mathematik, die Naturwissenschaft und die Philosophie, von welchen jede uns hoffen läßt, daß sie einen Theil des gewünschten Aufschlusses geben werde. — Nun finden wir aber zuvörderst die Philosophie als ein Ungeheuer mit vielen Köpfen, deren jeder eine andere Sprache redet. Zwar sind sie über den hier angeregten Punkt, die Bedeutung jener anschaulichen Vorstellung, nicht alle uneinig unter einander: denn, mit Ausnahme der Skeptiker und Idealisten, reden die anderen, der Hauptsache nach, ziemlich übereinstimmend von einem Objekt, welches der Vorstellung zum Grunde läge, und welches zwar von der Vorstellung seinem ganzen Seyn und Wesen nach verschieden, dabei ihr aber doch in allen Stücken so ähnlich, wie ein Ei dem andern wäre. Uns wird aber damit nicht geholfen seyn: denn wir wissen solches Objekt von der Vorstellung gar nicht zu unterscheiden; sondern finden, daß beide nur Eines und das Selbe sind, da alles Objekt immer und ewig ein Subjekt voraussetzt und daher doch Vorstellung bleibt; wie wir denn auch das Objektseyn als zur allgemeinsten Form der Vorstellung, welche eben das Zerfallen in Objekt und Subjekt ist, gehörig, erkannt haben. Zudem ist der Satz vom Grund, auf den man sich dabei beruft, uns ebenfalls nur Form der Vorstellung, nämlich die gesetzmäßige Verbindung einer Vorstellung mit einer andern, nicht aber die Verbindung der gesammten, endlichen oder endlosen Reihe der Vorstellungen mit etwas, das gar nicht Vorstellung wäre, also auch gar nicht vorstellbar seyn kann. — Von Skeptikern aber und Idealisten ist oben, bei Erörterung des Streites über die Realität der Außenwelt, geredet worden.

Suchen wir nun um die gewünschte nähere Kenntniß jener uns nur ganz allgemein, der bloßen Form nach, bekannt gewordenen anschaulichen Vorstellung bei der Mathematik nach; so wird uns diese von jenen Vorstellungen nur reden, sofern sie Zeit und Raum füllen, d. h. sofern sie Größen sind. Sie wird das Wieviel und Wiegroß höchst genau angeben: da aber dieses immer nur relativ, d. h. eine Vergleichung einer Vorstellung mit anderen, und zwar nur in jener einseitigen Rücksicht auf Größe ist; so wird auch dieses nicht die Auskunft seyn, die wir hauptsächlich suchen.

Blicken wir endlich auf das weite, in viele Felder getheilte Gebiet der Naturwissenschaft, so können wir zuvörderst zwei Hauptabtheilungen derselben unterscheiden. Sie ist entweder Beschreibung von Gestalten, welche ich Morphologie, oder Erklärung der Veränderungen, welche ich Aetiologie nenne. Erstere betrachtet die bleibenden Formen, letztere die wandelnde Materie, nach den Gesetzen ihres Uebergangs aus einer Form in die andere. Erstere ist das, was man, wenn gleich uneigentlich, Naturgeschichte nennt, in seinem ganzen Umfange: besonders als Botanik und Zoologie lehrt sie uns die verschiedenen, beim unaufhörlichen Wechsel der Individuen, bleibenden, organischen und dadurch fest bestimmten Gestalten kennen, welche einen großen Theil des Inhalts der anschaulichen Vorstellung ausmachen: sie werden von ihr klassificirt, gesondert, vereinigt, nach natürlichen und künstlichen Systemen geordnet, unter Begriffe gebracht, welche eine Uebersicht und Kenntniß aller möglich machen. Es wird ferner auch eine durch alle gehende, unendlich nüancirte Analogie derselben im Ganzen und in den Theilen nachgewiesen (unité de plan), vermöge welcher sie sehr mannigfaltigen Variationen auf ein nicht mitgegebenes Thema gleichen. Der Uebergang der Materie in jene Gestalten, d. h. die Entstehung der Individuen, ist kein Haupttheil der Betrachtung, da jedes Individuum aus dem ihm gleichen durch Zeugung hervorgeht, welche, überall gleich geheimnißvoll, sich bis jetzt der deutlichen Erkenntniß entzieht: das Wenige aber, was man davon weiß, findet seine Stelle in der Physiologie, die schon der ätiologischen Naturwissenschaft angehört. Zu dieser neigt sich auch schon die der Hauptsache nach zur Morphologie gehörende Mineralogie hin, besonders da, wo sie Geologie wird. Eigentliche Aetiologie sind nun alle die Zweige der Naturwissenschaft, welchen die Erkenntniß der Ursach und Wirkung überall die Hauptsache ist: diese lehren, wie, gemäß einer unfehlbaren Regel, auf einen Zustand der Materie nothwendig ein bestimmter anderer folgt; wie eine bestimmte Veränderung nothwendig eine andere, bestimmte, bedingt und herbeiführt: welche Nachweisung Erklärung genannt wird. Hier finden wir nun hauptsächlich Mechanik, Physik, Chemie, Physiologie.

Wenn wir uns aber ihrer Belehrung hingeben, so werden wir bald gewahr, daß die Auskunft, welche wir hauptsächlich suchen, uns von der Aetiologie so wenig, als von der Morphologie zu Theil wird. Diese letztere führt uns unzählige, unendlich mannigfaltige und doch durch eine unverkennbare Familienähnlichkeit verwandte Gestalten vor, für uns Vorstellungen, die auf diesem Wege uns ewig fremd bleiben und, wenn bloß so betrachtet, gleich unverstandenen Hieroglyphen vor uns stehen. — Die Aetiologie hingegen lehrt uns, daß, nach dem Gesetze von Ursach und Wirkung, dieser bestimmte Zustand der Materie jenen andern herbeiführt, und damit hat sie ihn erklärt und das Ihrige gethan. Indessen thut sie im Grunde nichts weiter, als daß sie die gesetzmäßige Ordnung, nach der die Zustände in Raum und Zeit eintreten, nachweist und für alle Fälle lehrt, welche Erscheinung zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Orte, nothwendig eintreten muß: sie bestimmt ihnen also ihre Stelle in Zeit und Raum, nach einem Gesetz, dessen bestimmten Inhalt die Erfahrung gelehrt hat, dessen allgemeine Form und Nothwendigkeit jedoch unabhängig von ihr uns bewußt ist. Ueber das innere Wesen irgend einer jener Erscheinungen erhalten wir dadurch aber nicht den mindesten Aufschluß: dieses wird Naturkraft genannt und liegt außerhalb des Gebiets der ätiologischen Erklärung, welche die unwandelbare Konstanz des Eintritts der Aeußerung einer solchen Kraft, so oft die ihr bekannten Bedingungen dazu da sind, Naturgesetz nennt. Dieses Naturgesetz, diese Bedingungen, dieser Eintritt, in Bezug auf bestimmten Ort zu bestimmter Zeit, sind aber Alles was sie weiß und je wissen kann. Die Kraft selbst, die sich äußert, das innere Wesen der nach jenen Gesetzen eintretenden Erscheinungen, bleibt ihr ewig ein Geheimniß, ein ganz Fremdes und Unbekanntes, sowohl bei der einfachsten, wie bei der komplicirtesten Erscheinung. Denn, wiewohl die Aetiologie bis jetzt ihren Zweck am vollkommensten in der Mechanik, am unvollkommensten in der Physiologie erreicht hat; so ist dennoch die Kraft, vermöge welcher ein Stein zur Erde fällt, oder ein Körper den andern fortstößt, ihrem innern Wesen nach, uns nicht minder fremd und geheimnißvoll, als die, welche die Bewegungen und das Wachsthum eines Thieres hervorbringt. Die Mechanik setzt Materie, Schwere, Undurchdringlichkeit, Mittheilbarkeit der Bewegung durch Stoß, Starrheit u. s. w. als unergründlich voraus, nennt sie Naturkräfte, ihr nothwendiges und regelmäßiges Erscheinen unter gewissen Bedingungen Naturgesetz, und danach erst fängt sie ihre Erklärung an, welche darin besteht, daß sie treu und mathematisch genau angiebt, wie, wo, wann jede Kraft sich äußert, und daß sie jede ihr vorkommende Erscheinung auf eine jener Kräfte zurückführt. Ebenso machen es Physik, Chemie, Physiologie in ihrem Gebiet, nur daß sie noch viel mehr voraussetzen und weniger leisten. Demzufolge wäre auch die vollkommenste ätiologische Erklärung der gesammten Natur eigentlich nie mehr, als ein Verzeichniß der unerklärlichen Kräfte, und eine sichere Angabe der Regel, nach welcher die Erscheinungen derselben in Zeit und Raum eintreten, sich succediren, einander Platz machen: aber das innere Wesen der also erscheinenden Kräfte müßte sie, weil das Gesetz dem sie folgt nicht dahin führt, stets unerklärt lassen, und bei der Erscheinung und deren Ordnung stehen bleiben. Sie wäre insofern dem Durchschnitt eines Marmors zu vergleichen, welcher vielerlei Adern neben einander zeigt, nicht aber den Lauf jener Adern im Innern des Marmors bis zu jener Fläche erkennen läßt. Oder wenn ich mir ein scherzhaftes Gleichniß, weil es frappanter ist, erlauben darf, — bei der vollendeten Aetiologie der ganzen Natur müßte dem philosophischen Forscher doch immer so zu Muthe seyn, wie Jemanden, der, er wüßte gar nicht wie, in eine ihm gänzlich unbekannte Gesellschaft gerathen wäre, von deren Mitgliedern, der Reihe nach, ihm immer eines das andere als seinen Freund und Vetter präsentirte und so hinlänglich bekannt machte: er selbst aber hätte unterdessen, indem er jedesmal sich über den Präsentirten zu freuen versicherte, stets die Frage auf den Lippen: „Aber wie Teufel komme ich denn zu der ganzen Gesellschaft?"

Also auch die Aetiologie kann uns nimmermehr über jene Erscheinungen, welche wir nur als unsere Vorstellungen kennen, den erwünschten, uns hierüber hinausführenden Aufschluß geben. Denn nach allen ihren Erklärungen, stehen sie noch als bloße Vorstellungen, deren Bedeutung wir nicht verstehen, völlig fremd vor uns. Die ursächliche Verknüpfung giebt bloß die Regel und relative Ordnung ihres Eintritts in Raum und Zeit an, lehrt uns aber das, was also eintritt, nicht näher kennen. Zudem hat das Gesetz der Kausalität selbst nur Gültigkeit für Vorstellungen, für Objekte einer bestimmten Klasse, unter deren Voraussetzung es allein Bedeutung hat: es ist also, wie diese Objekte selbst, immer nur in Beziehung auf das Subjekt, also bedingterweise da; weshalb es auch ebenso wohl wenn man vom Subjekt ausgeht, d. h. a priori, als wenn man vom Objekt ausgeht, d. h. a posteriori, erkannt wird, wie eben Kant uns gelehrt hat.

Was aber uns jetzt zum Forschen antreibt, ist eben, daß es uns nicht genügt zu wissen, daß wir Vorstellungen haben, daß sie solche und solche sind, und nach diesen und jenen Gesetzen, deren allgemeiner Ausdruck allemal der Satz vom Grunde ist, zusammenhängen. Wir wollen die Bedeutung jener Vorstellung wissen: wir fragen, ob diese Welt nichts weiter, als Vorstellung sei; in welchem Falle sie wie ein wesenloser Traum, oder ein gespensterhaftes Luftgebilde, an uns vorüberziehen müßte, nicht unserer Beachtung werth; oder aber ob sie noch etwas Anderes, noch etwas außerdem ist, und was sodann dieses sei. Soviel ist gleich gewiß, daß dieses Nachgefragte etwas von der Vorstellung völlig und seinem ganzen Wesen nach Grundverschiedenes seyn muß, dem daher auch ihre Formen und ihre Gesetze völlig fremd seyn müssen; daß man daher, von der Vorstellung aus, zu ihm nicht am Leitfaden derjenigen Gesetze gelangen kann, die nur Objekte, Vorstellungen, unter einander verbinden; welches die Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde sind.

Wir sehen schon hier, daß von außen dem Wesen der Dinge nimmermehr beizukommen ist: wie immer man auch forschen mag, so gewinnt man nichts, als Bilder und Namen. Man gleicht Einem, der um ein Schloß herumgeht, vergeblich einen Eingang suchend und einstweilen die Fassaden skizzirend. Und doch ist dies der Weg, den alle Philosophen vor mir gegangen sind.

18 In der That würde die nachgeforschte Bedeutung der mir lediglich als meine Vorstellung gegenüberstehenden Welt, oder der Uebergang von ihr, als bloßer Vorstellung des erkennenden Subjekts, zu dem, was sie noch außerdem seyn mag, nimmermehr zu finden seyn, wenn der Forscher selbst nichts weiter als das rein erkennende Subjekt (geflügelter Engelskopf ohne Leib) wäre. Nun aber wurzelt er selbst in jener Welt, findet sich nämlich in ihr als Individuum, d. h. sein Erkennen, welches der bedingende Träger der ganzen Welt als Vorstellung ist, ist dennoch durchaus vermittelt durch einen Leib, dessen Affektionen, wie gezeigt, dem Verstande der Ausgangspunkt der Anschauung jener Welt sind. Dieser Leib ist dem rein erkennenden Subjekt als solchem eine Vorstellung wie jede andere, ein Objekt unter Objekten: die Bewegungen, die Aktionen desselben sind ihm in soweit nicht anders, als wie die Veränderungen aller anderen anschaulichen Objekte bekannt, und wären ihm ebenso fremd und unverständlich, wenn die Bedeutung derselben ihm nicht etwan auf eine ganz andere Art enträthselt wäre. Sonst sähe er sein Handeln auf dargebotene Motive mit der Konstanz eines Naturgesetzes erfolgen, eben wie die Veränderungen anderer Objekte auf Ursachen, Reize, Motive. Er würde aber den Einfluß der Motive nicht näher verstehen, als die Verbindung jeder andern ihm erscheinenden Wirkung mit ihrer Ursache. Er würde dann das innere, ihm unverständliche Wesen jener Aeußerungen und Handlungen seines Leibes, eben auch eine Kraft, eine Qualität, oder einen Charakter, nach Belieben, nennen, aber weiter keine Einsicht darin haben. Diesem allen nun aber ist nicht so: vielmehr ist dem als Individuum erscheinenden Subjekt des Erkennens das Wort des Räthsels gegeben: und dieses Wort heißt Wille. Dieses, und dieses allein, giebt ihm den Schlüssel zu seiner eigenen Erscheinung, offenbart ihm die Bedeutung, zeigt ihm das innere Getriebe seines Wesens, seines Thuns, seiner Bewegungen. Dem Subjekt des Erkennens, welches durch seine Identität mit dem Leibe als Individuum auftritt, ist dieser Leib auf zwei ganz verschiedene Weisen gegeben: einmal als Vorstellung in verständiger Anschauung, als Objekt unter Objekten, und den Gesetzen dieser unterworfen; sodann aber auch zugleich auf eine ganz andere Weise, nämlich als jenes Jedem unmittelbar Bekannte, welches das Wort Wille bezeichnet. Jeder wahre Akt seines Willens ist sofort und unausbleiblich auch eine Bewegung seines Leibes: er kann den Akt nicht wirklich wollen, ohne zugleich wahrzunehmen, daß er als Bewegung des Leibes erscheint. Der Willensakt und die Aktion des Leibes sind nicht zwei objektiv erkannte verschiedene Zustände, die das Band der Kausalität verknüpft, stehen nicht im Verhältniß der Ursache und Wirkung; sondern sie sind Eines und das Selbe, nur auf zwei gänzlich verschiedene Weisen gegeben: einmal ganz unmittelbar und einmal in der Anschauung für den Verstand. Die Aktion des Leibes ist nichts Anderes, als der objektivirte, d. h. in die Anschauung getretene Akt des Willens. Weiterhin wird sich uns zeigen, daß dieses von jeder Bewegung des Leibes gilt, nicht bloß von der auf Motive, sondern auch von der auf bloße Reize erfolgenden unwillkürlichen, ja, daß der ganze Leib nichts Anderes, als der objektivirte, d. h. zur Vorstellung gewordene Wille ist; welches alles sich im weitern Verfolg ergeben und deutlich werden wird. Ich werde daher den Leib, welchen ich im vorigen Buche und in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, nach dem dort mit Absicht einseitig genommenen Standpunkt (dem der Vorstellung), das unmittelbare Objekt hieß, hier, in einer andern Rücksicht, die Objektität des Willens nennen. Auch kann man daher in gewissem Sinne sagen: der Wille ist die Erkenntniß a priori des Leibes, und der Leib die Erkenntniß a posteriori des Willens. — Willensbeschlüsse, die sich auf die Zukunft beziehen, sind bloße Ueberlegungen der Vernunft, über das, was man dereinst wollen wird, nicht eigentliche Willensakte: nur die Ausführung stempelt den Entschluß, der bis dahin immer nur noch veränderlicher Vorsatz ist und nur in der Vernunft, in abstracto existirt. In der Reflexion allein ist Wollen und Thun verschieden: in der Wirklichkeit sind sie Eins. Jeder wahre, ächte, unmittelbare Akt des Willens ist sofort und unmittelbar auch erscheinender Akt des Leibes: und diesem entsprechend ist andererseits jede Einwirkung auf den Leib sofort und unmittelbar auch Einwirkung auf den Willen: sie heißt als solche Schmerz, wenn sie dem Willen zuwider; Wohlbehagen, Wollust, wenn sie ihm gemäß ist. Die Gradationen beider sind sehr verschieden. Man hat aber gänzlich Unrecht, wenn man Schmerz und Wollust Vorstellungen nennt: das sind sie keineswegs, sondern unmittelbare Affektionen des Willens, in seiner Erscheinung, dem Leibe: ein erzwungenes augenblickliches Wollen oder Nichtwollen des Eindrucks, den dieser erleidet. Unmittelbar als bloße Vorstellungen zu betrachten und daher von dem eben Gesagten auszunehmen, sind nur gewisse wenige Eindrücke auf den Leib, die den Willen nicht anregen und durch welche allein der Leib unmittelbares Objekt des Erkennens ist, da er als Anschauung im Verstande schon mittelbares Objekt, gleich allen andern, ist. Das hier Gemeinte sind nämlich die Affektionen der rein objektiven Sinne, des Gesichts, Gehörs und Getastes, wiewohl auch nur, sofern diese Organe auf die ihnen besonders eigenthümliche, specifische, naturgemäße Weise afficirt werden, welche eine so äußerst schwache Anregung der gesteigerten und specifisch modificirten Sensibilität dieser Theile ist, daß sie nicht den Willen afficirt; sondern, durch keine Anregung desselben gestört, nur dem Verstande die Data liefert, aus denen die Anschauung wird. Jede stärkere, oder anderartige Affektion jener Sinneswerkzeuge ist aber schmerzhaft, d. h. dem Willen entgegen, zu dessen Objektität also auch sie gehören. — Nervenschwäche äußert sich darin, daß die Eindrücke, welche bloß den Grad von Stärke haben sollten, der hinreicht sie zu Datis für den Verstand zu machen, den höhern Grad erreichen, auf welchem sie den Willen bewegen, d. h. Schmerz oder Wohlgefühl erregen, wiewohl öfterer Schmerz, der aber zum Theil dumpf und undeutlich ist, daher nicht nur einzelne Töne und starkes Licht schmerzlich empfinden läßt, sondern auch im Allgemeinen krankhafte hypochondrische Stimmung veranlaßt, ohne deutlich erkannt zu werden. — Ferner zeigt sich die Identität des Leibes und Willens unter anderm auch darin, daß jede heftige und übermäßige Bewegung des Willens, d. h. jeder Affekt, ganz unmittelbar den Leib und dessen inneres Getriebe erschüttert und den Gang seiner vitalen Funktionen stört. Dies findet man speciell ausgeführt im „Willen in der Natur“, S. 27 der zweiten Auflage.

Endlich ist die Erkenntniß, welche ich von meinem Willen habe, obwohl eine unmittelbare, doch von der meines Leibes nicht zu trennen. Ich erkenne meinen Willen nicht im Ganzen, nicht als Einheit, nicht vollkommen seinem Wesen nach, sondern ich erkenne ihn allein in seinen einzelnen Akten, also in der Zeit, welche die Form der Erscheinung meines Leibes, wie jedes Objekts ist: daher ist der Leib Bedingung der Erkenntniß meines Willens. Diesen Willen ohne meinen Leib kann ich demnach eigentlich nicht vorstellen. In der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grund ist zwar der Wille, oder vielmehr das Subjekt des Wollens, als eine besondere Klasse der Vorstellungen oder Objekte aufgestellt: allein schon daselbst sahen wir dieses Objekt mit dem Subjekt zusammenfallen, d. h. eben aufhören Objekt zu seyn: wir nannten dort dieses Zusammenfallen das Wunder κατ’ εξοχην: gewissermaaßen ist die ganze gegenwärtige Schrift die Erklärung desselben. — Sofern ich meinen Willen eigentlich als Objekt erkenne, erkenne ich ihn als Leib: dann bin ich aber wieder bei der in jener Abhandlung aufgestellten ersten Klasse der Vorstellungen, d. h. bei den realen Objekten. Wir werden im weitern Fortgang mehr und mehr einsehen, daß jene erste Klasse der Vorstellungen ihren Aufschluß, ihre Enträthselung, eben nur findet an der dort aufgestellten vierten Klasse, welche nicht mehr eigentlich als Objekt dem Subjekt gegenüberstehen wollte, und daß wir, Dem entsprechend, aus dem die vierte Klasse beherrschenden Gesetz der Motivation, das innere Wesen des in der ersten Klasse geltenden Gesetzes der Kausalität, und dessen was diesem gemäß geschieht, verstehen lernen müssen.

Die nun vorläufig dargestellte Identität des Willens und des Leibes kann nur, wie hier, und zwar zum ersten Male, geschehen ist und im weitern Fortgang mehr und mehr geschehen soll, nachgewiesen, d. h. aus dem unmittelbaren Bewußtseyn, aus der Erkenntniß in concreto, zum Wissen der Vernunft erhoben, oder in die Erkenntniß in abstracto übertragen werden: hingegen kann sie ihrer Natur nach niemals bewiesen, d. h. als mittelbare Erkenntniß aus einer andern unmittelbarern abgeleitet werden, eben weil sie selbst die unmittelbarste ist, und wenn wir sie nicht als solche auffassen und festhalten, werden wir vergebens erwarten, sie irgend mittelbar, als abgeleitete Erkenntniß wiederzuerhalten. Sie ist eine Erkenntniß ganz eigener Art, deren Wahrheit eben deshalb nicht einmal eigentlich unter eine der vier Rubriken gebracht werden kann, in welche ich in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grund, §. 29 ff., alle Wahrheit getheilt habe, nämlich in logische, empirische, metaphysische und metalogische: denn sie ist nicht, wie alle jene, die Beziehung einer abstrakten Vorstellung auf eine andere Vorstellung, oder auf die nothwendige Form des intuitiven, oder des abstrakten Vorstellens; sondern sie ist die Beziehung eines Urtheils auf das Verhältniß, welches eine anschauliche Vorstellung, der Leib, zu dem hat, was gar nicht Vorstellung ist, sondern ein von dieser toto genere Verschiedenes: Wille. Ich möchte darum diese Wahrheit vor allen andern auszeichnen und sie κατ' εξοχην philosophische Wahrheit nennen. Den Ausdruck derselben kann man verschiedentlich wenden, und sagen: mein Leib und mein Wille sind Eines; — oder was ich als anschauliche Vorstellung meinen Leib nenne, nenne ich, sofern ich desselben auf eine ganz verschiedene, keiner andern zu vergleichende Weise mir bewußt bin, meinen Willen; — oder, mein Leib ist die Objektität meines Willens; — oder, abgesehen davon, daß mein Leib meine Vorstellung ist, ist er nur noch mein Wille; u. s. w. [1].

19 Wenn wir im ersten Buche, mit innerm Widerstreben, den eigenen Leib, wie alle übrigen Objekte dieser anschaulichen Welt, für bloße Vorstellung des erkennenden Subjekts erklärten; so ist es uns nunmehr deutlich geworden, was im Bewußtseyn eines Jeden, die Vorstellung des eigenen Leibes von allen anderen, dieser übrigens ganz gleichen, unterscheidet, nämlich dies, daß der Leib noch in einer ganz andern, toto genere verschiedenen Art im Bewußtseyn vorkommt, die man durch das Wort Wille bezeichnet, und daß eben diese doppelte Erkenntniß, die wir vom eigenen Leibe haben, uns über ihn selbst, über sein Wirken und Bewegen auf Motive, wie auch über sein Leiden durch äußere Einwirkung, mit Einem Wort, über das, was er, nicht als Vorstellung, sondern außerdem, also an sich ist, denjenigen Aufschluß giebt, welchen wir über das Wesen, Wirken und Leiden aller andern realen Objekte unmittelbar nicht haben.

Das erkennende Subjekt ist eben durch diese besondere Beziehung auf den einen Leib, der ihm, außer derselben betrachtet, nur eine Vorstellung gleich allen übrigen ist, Individuum. Die Beziehung aber, vermöge welcher das erkennende Subjekt Individuum ist, ist ebendeshalb nur zwischen ihm und einer einzigen unter allen seinen Vorstellungen, daher es nur dieser einzigen nicht bloß als einer Vorstellung, sondern zugleich in ganz anderer Art, nämlich als eines Willens, sich bewußt ist. Da aber, wenn es von jener besondern Beziehung, von jener zwiefachen und ganz heterogenen Erkenntniß des Einen und Nämlichen, abstrahirt; dann jenes Eine, der Leib, eine Vorstellung gleich allen andern ist: so muß, um sich hierüber zu orientiren, das erkennende Individuum entweder annehmen, daß das Unterscheidende jener einen Vorstellung bloß darin liegt, daß seine Erkenntniß nur zu jener einen Vorstellung in dieser doppelten Beziehung steht, nur in dieses eine anschauliche Objekt ihm auf zwei Weisen² Hiezu Kap. 18 des zweiten Bandes. zugleich die Einsicht offen steht, daß dies aber nicht durch einen Unterschied dieses Objekts von allen anderen, sondern nur durch einen Unterschied des Verhältnisses seiner Erkenntniß zu diesem einen Objekt, von dem, so es zu allen anderen hat, zu erklären ist; oder auch es muß annehmen, daß dieses eine Objekt wesentlich von allen anderen verschieden ist, ganz allein unter allen zugleich Wille und Vorstellung ist, die übrigen hingegen bloße Vorstellung, d. h. bloße Phantome sind, sein Leib also das einzige wirkliche Individuum in der Welt, d. h. die einzige Willenserscheinung und das einzige unmittelbare Objekt des Subjekts. — Daß die anderen Objekte, als bloße Vorstellungen betrachtet, seinem Leibe gleich sind, d. h. wie dieser den (nur als Vorstellung selbst möglicherweise vorhandenen) Raum füllen, und auch wie dieser im Raume wirken, dies ist zwar beweisbar gewiß, aus dem für Vorstellungen a priori sichern Gesetz der Kausalität, welches keine Wirkung ohne Ursache zuläßt: aber, abgesehen davon, daß sich von der Wirkung nur auf eine Ursache überhaupt, nicht auf eine gleiche Ursache schließen läßt; so ist man hiemit immer noch im Gebiet der bloßen Vorstellung, für die allein das Gesetz der Kausalität gilt, und über welches hinaus es nie führen kann. Ob aber die dem Individuo nur als Vorstellungen bekannten Objekte, dennoch, gleich seinem eigenen Leibe, Erscheinungen eines Willens sind; dies ist, wie bereits im vorigen Buche ausgesprochen, der eigentliche Sinn der Frage nach der Realität der Außenwelt: dasselbe zu leugnen, ist der Sinn des theoretischen Egoismus, der eben dadurch alle Erscheinungen, außer seinem eigenen Individuum, für Phantome hält, wie der praktische Egoismus genau das Selbe in praktischer Hinsicht thut, nämlich nur die eigene Person als eine wirklich solche, alle übrigen aber als bloße Phantome ansieht und behandelt. Der theoretische Egoismus ist zwar durch Beweise nimmermehr zu widerlegen: dennoch ist er zuverlässig in der Philosophie nie anders, denn als skeptisches Sophisma, d. h. zum Schein gebraucht worden. Als ernstliche Ueberzeugung hingegen könnte er allein im Tollhause gefunden werden: als solche bedürfte es dann gegen ihn nicht sowohl eines Beweises, als einer Kur. Daher wir uns insofern auf ihn nicht weiter einlassen, sondern ihn allein als die letzte Feste des Skeptizismus, der immer polemisch ist, betrachten.

Bringt nun also unsere stets an Individualität gebundene und eben hierin ihre Beschränkung habende Erkenntniß es nothwendig mit sich, daß Jeder nur Eines seyn, hingegen alles andere erkennen kann, welche Beschränkung eben eigentlich das Bedürfniß der Philosophie erzeugt; so werden wir, die wir eben deshalb durch Philosophie die Schranken unserer Erkenntniß zu erweitern streben, jenes sich uns hier entgegenstellende skeptische Argument des theoretischen Egoismus ansehen als eine kleine Gränzfestung, die zwar auf immer unbezwinglich ist, deren Besatzung aber durchaus auch nie aus ihr herauskann, daher man ihr vorbeigehen und ohne Gefahr sie im Rücken liegen lassen darf.

Wir werden demzufolge die nunmehr zur Deutlichkeit erhobene doppelte, auf zwei völlig heterogene Weisen gegebene Erkenntniß, welche wir vom Wesen und Wirken unseres eigenen Leibes haben, weiterhin als einen Schlüssel zum Wesen jeder Erscheinung in der Natur gebrauchen und alle Objekte, die nicht unser eigener Leib, daher nicht auf doppelte Weise, sondern allein als Vorstellungen unserm Bewußtseyn gegeben sind, eben nach Analogie jenes Leibes beurtheilen und daher annehmen, daß, wie sie einerseits, ganz so wie er, Vorstellung und darin mit ihm gleichartig sind, auch andererseits, wenn man ihr Daseyn als Vorstellung des Subjekts bei Seite setzt, das dann noch übrig Bleibende, seinem innern Wesen nach, das selbe seyn muß, als was wir an uns Wille nennen. Denn welche andere Art von Daseyn oder Realität sollten wir der übrigen Körperwelt beilegen? woher die Elemente nehmen, aus der wir eine solche zusammensetzten? Außer dem Willen und der Vorstellung ist uns gar nichts bekannt, noch denkbar. Wenn wir der Körperwelt, welche unmittelbar nur in unserer Vorstellung dasteht, die größte uns bekannte Realität beilegen wollen; so geben wir ihr die Realität, welche für Jeden sein eigener Leib hat: denn der ist Jedem das Realste. Aber wenn wir nun die Realität dieses Leibes und seiner Aktionen analysiren, so treffen wir, außerdem daß er unsere Vorstellung ist, nichts darin an, als den Willen: damit ist selbst seine Realität erschöpft. Wir können daher eine anderweitige Realität, um sie der Körperwelt beizulegen, nirgends finden. Wenn also die Körperwelt noch etwas mehr seyn soll, als bloß unsere Vorstellung, so müssen wir sagen, daß sie außer der Vorstellung, also an sich und ihrem innersten Wesen nach, Das sei, was wir in uns selbst unmittelbar als Willen finden. Ich sage, ihrem innersten Wesen nach: dieses Wesen des Willens aber haben wir zuvörderst näher kennen zu lernen, damit wir Das, was nicht ihm selbst, sondern schon seiner, viele Grade habenden Erscheinung angehört, von ihm zu unterscheiden wissen: dergleichen ist z. B. das Begleitetseyn von Erkenntniß und das dadurch bedingte Bestimmtwerden durch Motive: dieses gehört, wie wir im weitern Fortgang einsehen werden, nicht seinem Wesen sondern bloß seiner deutlichen Erscheinung als Thier und Mensch an. Wenn ich daher sagen werde: die Kraft, welche den Stein zur Erde treibt, ist ihrem Wesen nach, an sich und außer aller Vorstellung, Wille; so wird man diesem Satz nicht die tolle Meinung unterlegen, daß der Stein sich nach einem erkannten Motive bewegt, weil im Menschen der Wille also erscheint³. — Nunmehr aber wollen wir das bis hieher vorläufig und allgemein Dargestellte ausführlicher und deutlicher nachweisen, begründen und in seinem ganzen Umfang entwickeln⁴.

20 Als des eigenen Leibes Wesen an sich, als dasjenige, was dieser Leib ist, außerdem daß er Objekt der Anschauung, Vorstellung ist, giebt, wie gesagt, der Wille zunächst sich kund in den willkürlichen Bewegungen dieses Leibes, sofern diese nämlich nichts Anderes sind, als die Sichtbarkeit der einzelnen Willensakte, mit welchen sie unmittelbar und völlig zugleich eintreten, [5] Wir werden also keineswegs dem Bako v. Verulam beistimmen, wenn er (de augm. scient. L. 4 in fine) meint, daß alle mechanischen und physischen Bewegungen der Körper erst nach vorhergegangener Perception in diesen Körpern erfolgten; obgleich eine Ahndung der Wahrheit auch diesem falschen Satz das Daseyn gab. Ebenso verhält es sich mit Kepplers Behauptung, in seiner Abhandlung de planeta Martis, daß die Planeten Erkenntniß haben müßten, um ihre elliptischen Bahnen so richtig zu treffen und die Schnelligkeit ihrer Bewegung so abzumessen, daß die Triangel der Fläche ihrer Bahn stets der Zeit proportional bleiben, in welcher sie deren Basis durchlaufen.

6 Hiezu Kap. 19 des zweiten Bandes. als Ein und dasselbe mit ihnen, nur durch die Form der Erkennbarkeit, in die sie übergegangen, d. h. Vorstellung geworden sind, von ihnen unterschieden.

Diese Akte des Willens haben aber immer noch einen Grund außer sich, in den Motiven. Jedoch bestimmen diese nie mehr, als das was ich zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort, unter diesen Umständen will; nicht aber daß ich überhaupt will, noch was ich überhaupt will, d. h. die Maxime, welche mein gesammtes Wollen charakterisirt. Daher ist mein Wollen nicht seinem ganzen Wesen nach aus den Motiven zu erklären; sondern diese bestimmen bloß seine Aeußerung im gegebenen Zeitpunkt, sind bloß der Anlaß, bei dem sich mein Wille zeigt: dieser selbst hingegen liegt außerhalb des Gebietes des Gesetzes der Motivation: nur seine Erscheinung in jedem Zeitpunkt ist durch dieses nothwendig bestimmt. Lediglich unter Voraussetzung meines empirischen Charakters ist das Motiv hinreichender Erklärungsgrund meines Handelns: abstrahire ich aber von meinem Charakter und frage dann, warum ich überhaupt dieses und nicht jenes will; so ist keine Antwort darauf möglich, weil eben nur die Erscheinung des Willens dem Satze vom Grunde unterworfen ist, nicht aber er selbst, der insofern grundlos zu nennen ist. Hiebei setze ich theils Kants Lehre vom empirischen und intelligibeln Charakter, wie auch meine in den „Grundproblemen der Ethik“, S. 48—58, und wieder S. 178 ff. der ersten Auflage, dahin gehörigen Erörterungen voraus, theils werden wir im vierten Buch ausführlicher davon zu reden haben. Für jetzt habe ich nur darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß das Begründetseyn einer Erscheinung durch die andere, hier also der That durch das Motiv, gar nicht damit streitet, daß ihr Wesen an sich Wille ist, der selbst keinen Grund hat, indem der Satz vom Grunde, in allen seinen Gestalten, bloß Form der Erkenntniß ist, seine Gültigkeit sich also bloß auf die Vorstellung, die Erscheinung, die Sichtbarkeit des Willens erstreckt, nicht auf diesen selbst, der sichtbar wird.

Ist nun jede Aktion meines Leibes Erscheinung eines Willensaktes, in welchem sich, unter gegebenen Motiven, mein Wille selbst überhaupt und im Ganzen, also mein Charakter, wieder ausspricht; so muß auch die unumgängliche Bedingung und Voraussetzung jener Aktion Erscheinung des Willens seyn: denn sein Erscheinen kann nicht von etwas abhängen, das nicht unmittelbar und allein durch ihn, das mithin für ihn nur zufällig wäre, wodurch sein Erscheinen selbst nur zufällig würde: jene Bedingung aber ist der ganze Leib selbst. Dieser selbst also muß schon Erscheinung des Willens seyn, und muß zu meinem Willen im Ganzen, d. h. zu meinem intelligibeln Charakter, dessen Erscheinung in der Zeit mein empirischer Charakter ist, sich so verhalten, wie die einzelne Aktion des Leibes zum einzelnen Akte des Willens. Also muß der ganze Leib nichts Anderes seyn, als mein sichtbar gewordener Wille, muß mein Wille selbst seyn, sofern dieser anschauliches Objekt, Vorstellung der ersten Klasse ist. — Als Bestätigung hievon ist bereits angeführt, daß jede Einwirkung auf meinen Leib sofort und unmittelbar auch meinen Willen affizirt und in dieser Hinsicht Schmerz oder Wollust, im niedrigeren Grade angenehme oder unangenehme Empfindung heißt, und auch, daß umgekehrt jede heftige Bewegung des Willens, also Affekt und Leidenschaft, den Leib erschüttert und den Lauf seiner Funktionen stört. — Zwar läßt sich, wenn gleich sehr unvollkommen, von der Entstehung, und etwas besser von der Entwickelung und Erhaltung meines Leibes auch ätiologisch eine Rechenschaft geben, welche eben die Physiologie ist: allein diese erklärt ihr Thema gerade nur so, wie die Motive das Handeln erklären. So wenig daher die Begründung der einzelnen Handlung durch das Motiv und die nothwendige Folge derselben aus diesem damit streitet, daß die Handlung überhaupt und ihrem Wesen nach nur Erscheinung eines an sich selbst grundlosen Willens ist; ebenso wenig thut die physiologische Erklärung der Funktionen des Leibes der philosophischen Wahrheit Eintrag, daß das ganze Daseyn dieses Leibes und die gesammte Reihe seiner Funktionen nur die Objektivirung eben jenes Willens ist, der in desselben Leibes äußerlichen Aktionen nach Maaßgabe der Motive erscheint. Sucht doch die Physiologie auch sogar eben diese äußerlichen Aktionen, die unmittelbar willkürlichen Bewegungen, auf Ursachen im Organismus zurückzuführen, z. B. die Bewegung des Muskels zu erklären aus einem Zufluß von Säften („wie die Zusammenziehung eines Strickes der naß wird“ sagt Reil, in seinem Archiv für Physiologie, Bd. 6, S. 153): allein gesetzt, man käme wirklich zu einer gründlichen Erklärung dieser Art, so würde dies doch nie die unmittelbar gewisse Wahrheit aufheben, daß jede willkürliche Bewegung (functiones animales) Erscheinung eines Willensaktes ist. Ebenso wenig nun kann je die physiologische Erklärung des vegetativen Lebens (functiónes naturales, vitales), und gediehe sie auch noch so weit, die Wahrheit aufheben, daß dieses ganze, sich so entwickelnde thierische Leben selbst Erscheinung des Willens ist. Ueberhaupt kann ja, wie oben erörtert worden, jede ätiologische Erklärung nie mehr angeben, als die nothwendig bestimmte Stelle in Zeit und Raum einer einzelnen Erscheinung, ihren nothwendigen Eintritt daselbst nach einer festen Regel: hingegen bleibt das innere Wesen jeder Erscheinung auf diesem Wege immer unergründlich, und wird von jeder ätiologischen Erklärung vorausgesetzt und bloß bezeichnet durch die Namen Kraft, oder Naturgesetz, oder, wenn von Handlungen die Rede ist, Charakter, Wille. — Obgleich also jede einzelne Handlung, unter Voraussetzung des bestimmten Charakters, nothwendig bei dargebotenem Motiv erfolgt, und obgleich das Wachsthum, der Ernährungsproceß und sämmtliche Veränderungen im thierischen Leibe nach nothwendig wirkenden Ursachen (Reizen) vor sich gehen; so ist dennoch die ganze Reihe der Handlungen, folglich auch jede einzelne, und ebenso auch deren Bedingung, der ganze Leib selbst, der sie vollzieht, folglich auch der Proceß durch den und in dem er besteht — nichts Anderes, als die Erscheinung des Willens, die Sichtbarwerdung, Objektität des Willens. Hierauf beruht die vollkommene Angemessenheit des menschlichen und thierischen Leibes zum menschlichen und thierischen Willen überhaupt, derjenigen ähnlich, aber sie weit übertreffend, die ein absichtlich verfertigtes Werkzeug zum Willen des Verfertigers hat, und dieserhalb erscheinend als Zweckmäßigkeit, d. i. die teleologische Erklärbarkeit des Leibes. Die Theile des Leibes müssen deshalb den Hauptbegehrungen, durch welche der Wille sich manifestirt, vollkommen entsprechen, müssen der sichtbare Ausdruck derselben seyn: Zähne, Schlund und Darmkanal sind der objektivirte Hunger; die Genitalien der objektivirte Geschlechtstrieb; die greifenden Hände, die raschen Füße entsprechen dem schon mehr mittelbaren Streben des Willens, welches sie darstellen. Wie die allgemeine menschliche Form dem allgemeinen menschlichen Willen, so entspricht dem individuell modifizirten Willen, dem Charakter des Einzelnen, die individuelle Korporisation, welche daher durchaus und in allen Theilen charakteristisch und ausdrucksvoll ist. Es ist sehr bemerkenswerth, daß dieses schon Parmenides, in folgenden von Aristoteles (Metaph. III, 5) angeführten Versen, ausgesprochen hat:

Ως γαρ εκαστος εχει κρασιν μελεων πολυκαμπτων, Τως νοος ανθρωποισι παρεστηκεν· το γαρ αυτο Εστιν, οπερ φρονεει, μελεων φυσις ανθρωποισι, Και πασιν και παντι· το γαρ πλεον εστι νοημα.

(Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibilium se habet, ita mens hominibus adest: idem namque est, quod sapit, membrorum natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni: quod enim plus est, intelligentia est.)⁷

21 Wem nun, durch alle diese Betrachtungen, auch in abstracto, mithin deutlich und sicher, die Erkenntniß geworden ist, welche in concreto Jeder unmittelbar, d. h. als Gefühl besitzt, daß nämlich das Wesen an sich seiner eigenen Erscheinung, welche als Vorstellung sich ihm sowohl durch seine Handlungen, als durch das bleibende Substrat dieser, seinen Leib, darstellt, sein Wille ist, der das Unmittelbarste seines Bewußtseyns ausmacht, als solches aber nicht völlig in die Form der Vorstellung, in welcher Objekt und Subjekt sich gegenüber stehen, eingegangen ist; sondern auf eine unmittelbare Weise, in der man Subjekt und Objekt nicht ganz deutlich unterscheidet, sich kund giebt, jedoch auch nicht im Ganzen, sondern nur in seinen einzelnen Akten dem Individuo selbst kenntlich wird: — wer, sage ich, mit mir diese Ueberzeugung gewonnen hat, dem wird sie, ganz von selbst, der Schlüssel werden zur Erkenntniß des innersten Wesens der gesammten Natur, indem er sie nun auch auf alle jene Erscheinungen⁸ Hiezu Kap. 20 des zweiten Bandes; wie auch, in meiner Schrift „Ueber den Willen in der Natur“, die Rubriken „Physiologie“ und „Vergleichende Anatomie“, woselbst das hier nur Angedeutete seine gründliche Ausführung erhalten hat. überträgt, die ihm nicht, wie seine eigene, in unmittelbarer Erkenntniß neben der mittelbaren, sondern bloß in letzterer, also bloß einseitig, als Vorstellung allein, gegeben sind. Nicht allein in denjenigen Erscheinungen, welche seiner eigenen ganz ähnlich sind, in Menschen und Thieren, wird er als ihr innerstes Wesen jenen nämlichen Willen anerkennen; sondern die fortgesetzte Reflexion wird ihn dahin leiten, auch die Kraft, welche in der Pflanze treibt und vegetirt, ja, die Kraft durch welche der Krystall anschießt, die, welche den Magnet zum Nordpol wendet, die, deren Schlag ihm aus der Berührung heterogener Metalle entgegenfährt, die, welche in den Wahlverwandtschaften der Stoffe als Fliehen und Suchen, Trennen und Vereinen erscheint, ja, zuletzt sogar die Schwere, welche in aller Materie so gewaltig strebt, den Stein zur Erde und die Erde zur Sonne zieht, — diese Alle nur in der Erscheinung für verschieden, ihrem innern Wesen nach aber als das Selbe zu erkennen, als jenes ihm unmittelbar so intim und besser als alles Andere Bekannte, was da, wo es am deutlichsten hervortritt, Wille heißt. Diese Anwendung der Reflexion ist es allein, welche uns nicht mehr bei der Erscheinung stehen bleiben läßt, sondern hinüberführt zum Ding an sich. Erscheinung heißt Vorstellung, und weiter nichts: alle Vorstellung, welcher Art sie auch sei, alles Objekt, ist Erscheinung. Ding an sich aber ist allein der Wille: als solcher ist er durchaus nicht Vorstellung, sondern toto genere von ihr verschieden: er ist es, wovon alle Vorstellung, alles Objekt, die Erscheinung, die Sichtbarkeit, die Objektität ist. Er ist das Innerste, der Kern jedes Einzelnen und ebenso des Ganzen: er erscheint in jeder blindwirkenden Naturkraft: er auch erscheint im überlegten Handeln des Menschen; welcher beiden große Verschiedenheit doch nur den Grad des Erscheinens, nicht das Wesen des Erscheinenden trifft.

22 Dieses Ding an sich (wir wollen den Kantischen Ausdruck als stehende Formel beibehalten), welches als solches nimmermehr Objekt ist, eben weil alles Objekt schon wieder seine bloße Erscheinung, nicht mehr es selbst ist, mußte, wenn es dennoch objektiv gedacht werden sollte, Namen und Begriff von einem Objekt borgen, von etwas irgendwie objektiv Gegebenem, folglich von einer seiner Erscheinungen: aber diese durfte, um als Verständigungspunkt zu dienen, keine andere seyn, als unter allen seinen Erscheinungen die vollkommenste, d. h. die deutlichste, am meisten entfaltete, vom Erkennen unmittelbar beleuchtete: diese aber eben ist des Menschen Wille. Man hat jedoch wohl zu bemerken, daß wir hier allerdings nur eine denominatio a potiori gebrauchen, durch welche eben deshalb der Begriff Wille eine größere Ausdehnung erhält, als er bisher hatte. Erkenntniß des Identischen in verschiedenen Erscheinungen und des Verschiedenen in ähnlichen ist eben, wie Platon so oft bemerkt, Bedingung zur Philosophie. Man hatte aber bis jetzt die Identität des Wesens jeder irgend strebenden und wirkenden Kraft in der Natur mit dem Willen nicht erkannt, und daher die mannigfaltigen Erscheinungen, welche nur verschiedene Species desselben Genus sind, nicht dafür angesehen, sondern als heterogen betrachtet: deswegen konnte auch kein Wort zur Bezeichnung des Begriffs dieses Genus vorhanden seyn. Ich benenne daher das Genus nach der vorzüglichsten Species, deren uns näher liegende, unmittelbare Erkenntniß zur mittelbaren Erkenntniß aller anderen führt. Daher aber würde in einem immerwährenden Mißverständniß befangen bleiben, wer nicht fähig wäre, die hier geforderte Erweiterung des Begriffs zu vollziehen, sondern bei dem Worte Wille immer nur noch die bisher allein damit bezeichnete eine Species, den vom Erkennen geleiteten und ausschließlich nach Motiven, ja wohl gar nur nach abstrakten Motiven, also unter Leitung der Vernunft sich äußernden Willen verstehen wollte, welcher, wie gesagt, nur die deutlichste Erscheinung des Willens ist. Das uns unmittelbar bekannte innerste Wesen eben dieser Erscheinung müssen wir nun in Gedanken rein aussondern, es dann auf alle schwächeren, undeutlicheren Erscheinungen desselben Wesens übertragen, wodurch wir die verlangte Erweiterung des Begriffs Wille vollziehen. — Auf die entgegengesetzte Weise würde mich aber der mißverstehen, der etwan meinte, es sei zuletzt einerlei, ob man jenes Wesen an sich aller Erscheinung durch das Wort Wille, oder durch irgend ein anderes bezeichnete. Dies würde der Fall seyn, wenn jenes Ding an sich etwas wäre, auf dessen Existenz wir bloß schlössen und es so allein mittelbar und bloß in abstracto erkennten: dann könnte man es allerdings nennen wie man wollte: der Name stände als bloßes Zeichen einer unbekannten Größe da. Nun aber bezeichnet das Wort Wille, welches uns, wie ein Zauberwort, das innerste Wesen jedes Dinges in der Natur aufschließen soll, keineswegs eine unbekannte Größe, ein durch Schlüsse erreichtes Etwas; sondern ein durchaus unmittelbar Erkanntes und so sehr Bekanntes, daß wir, was Wille sei, viel besser wissen und verstehen, als sonst irgend etwas, was immer es auch sei. — Bisher subsumirte man den Begriff Wille unter den Begriff Kraft: dagegen mache ich es gerade umgekehrt und will jede Kraft in der Natur als Wille gedacht wissen. Man glaube ja nicht, daß dies Wortstreit, oder gleichgültig sei: vielmehr ist es von der allerhöchsten Bedeutsamkeit und Wichtigkeit. Denn dem Begriffe Kraft liegt, wie allen anderen, zuletzt die anschauliche Erkenntniß der objektiven Welt, d. h. die Erscheinung, die Vorstellung, zum Grunde, und daraus ist er geschöpft. Er ist aus dem Gebiet abstrahirt, wo Ursach und Wirkung herrscht, also aus der anschaulichen Vorstellung, und bedeutet eben das Ursachseyn der Ursache, auf dem Punkt, wo es ätiologisch durchaus nicht weiter erklärlich, sondern eben die nothwendige Voraussetzung aller ätiologischen Erklärung ist. Hingegen der Begriff Wille ist der einzige, unter allen möglichen, welcher seinen Ursprung nicht in der Erscheinung, nicht in bloßer anschaulicher Vorstellung hat, sondern aus dem Innern kommt, aus dem unmittelbarsten Bewußtseyn eines Jeden hervorgeht, in welchem dieser sein eigenes Individuum, seinem Wesen nach, unmittelbar, ohne alle Form, selbst ohne die von Subjekt und Objekt, erkennt und zugleich selbst ist, da hier das Erkennende und das Erkannte zusammenfallen. Führen wir daher den Begriff der Kraft auf den des Willens zurück, so haben wir in der That ein Unbekannteres auf ein unendlich Bekannteres, ja, auf das einzige uns wirklich unmittelbar und ganz und gar Bekannte zurückgeführt und unsere Erkenntniß um ein sehr großes erweitert. Subsumiren wir hingegen, wie bisher geschah, den Begriff Wille unter den der Kraft; so begeben wir uns der einzigen unmittelbaren Erkenntniß, die wir vom innern Wesen der Welt haben, indem wir sie untergehen lassen in einen aus der Erscheinung abstrahirten Begriff, mit welchem wir daher nie über die Erscheinung hinauskönnen.

23 Der Wille als Ding an sich ist von seiner Erscheinung gänzlich verschieden und völlig frei von allen Formen derselben, in welche er eben erst eingeht, indem er erscheint, die daher nur seine Objektität betreffen, ihm selbst fremd sind. Schon die allgemeinste Form aller Vorstellung, die des Objekts für ein Subjekt, trifft ihn nicht; noch weniger die dieser untergeordneten, welche insgesammt ihren gemeinschaftlichen Ausdruck im Satz vom Grunde haben, wohin bekanntlich auch Zeit und Raum gehören, und folglich auch die durch diese allein bestehende und möglich gewordene Vielheit. In dieser letztern Hinsicht werde ich, mit einem aus der alten eigentlichen Scholastik entlehnten Ausdruck, Zeit und Raum das principium individuationis nennen, welches ich ein für alle Mal zu merken bitte. Denn Zeit und Raum allein sind es, mittelst welcher das dem Wesen und dem Begriff nach Gleiche und Eine doch als verschieden, als Vielheit neben und nach einander erscheint: sie sind folglich das principium individuationis, der Gegenstand so vieler Grübeleien und Streitigkeiten der Scholastiker, welche man im Suarez (Disp. 5, sect. 3) beisammen findet. — Der Wille als Ding an sich liegt, dem Gesagten zufolge, außerhalb des Gebietes des Satzes vom Grund in allen seinen Gestaltungen, und ist folglich schlechthin grundlos, obwohl jede seiner Erscheinungen durchaus dem Satz vom Grunde unterworfen ist: er ist ferner frei von aller Vielheit, obwohl seine Erscheinungen in Zeit und Raum unzählig sind: er selbst ist Einer: jedoch nicht wie ein Objekt Eines ist, dessen Einheit nur im Gegensatz der möglichen Vielheit erkannt wird: noch auch wie ein Begriff Eins ist, der nur durch Abstraktion von der Vielheit entstanden ist: sondern er ist Eines als das, was außer Zeit und Raum, dem principio individuationis, d. i. der Möglichkeit der Vielheit, liegt. Erst wenn uns dieses alles durch die folgende Betrachtung der Erscheinungen und verschiedenen Manifestationen des Willens völlig deutlich geworden seyn wird, werden wir den Sinn der Kantischen Lehre völlig verstehen, daß Zeit, Raum und Kausalität nicht dem Dinge an sich zukommen, sondern nur Formen des Erkennens sind.

Die Grundlosigkeit des Willens hat man auch wirklich da erkannt, wo er sich am deutlichsten manifestirt, als Wille des Menschen, und diesen frei, unabhängig genannt. Sogleich hat man aber auch, über die Grundlosigkeit des Willens selbst, die Nothwendigkeit, der seine Erscheinung überall unterworfen ist, übersehen, und die Thaten für frei erklärt, was sie nicht sind, da jede einzelne Handlung aus der Wirkung des Motivs auf den Charakter mit strenger Nothwendigkeit folgt. Alle Nothwendigkeit ist, wie schon gesagt, Verhältniß der Folge zum Grunde und durchaus nichts weiter. Der Satz vom Grunde ist allgemeine Form aller Erscheinung, und der Mensch in seinem Thun muß, wie jede andere Erscheinung, ihm unterworfen seyn. Weil aber im Selbstbewußtseyn der Wille unmittelbar und an sich erkannt wird, so liegt auch in diesem Bewußtseyn das der Freiheit. Allein es wird übersehen, daß das Individuum, die Person, nicht Wille als Ding an sich, sondern schon Erscheinung des Willens ist, als solche schon determinirt und in die Form der Erscheinung, den Satz vom Grund, eingegangen. Daher kommt die wunderliche Thatsache, daß Jeder sich a priori für ganz frei, auch in seinen einzelnen Handlungen, hält und meint, er könne jeden Augenblick einen andern Lebenswandel anfangen, welches hieße ein Anderer werden. Allein a posteriori, durch die Erfahrung, findet er zu seinem Erstaunen, daß er nicht frei ist, sondern der Nothwendigkeit unterworfen, daß er aller Vorsätze und Reflexionen ungeachtet, sein Thun nicht ändert, und vom Anfang seines Lebens bis zum Ende denselben von ihm selbst mißbilligten Charakter durchführen und gleichsam die übernommene Rolle bis zu Ende spielen muß. Ich kann diese Betrachtung hier nicht weiter ausführen, da sie als ethisch an eine andere Stelle dieser Schrift gehört. Hier wünsche ich inzwischen nur darauf hinzuweisen, daß die Erscheinung des an sich grundlosen Willens doch als solche dem Gesetz der Nothwendigkeit, d. i. dem Satz vom Grunde, unterworfen ist; damit wir an der Nothwendigkeit, mit welcher die Erscheinungen der Natur erfolgen, keinen Anstoß nehmen, in ihnen die Manifestationen des Willens zu erkennen.

Man hat bisher für Erscheinungen des Willens nur diejenigen Veränderungen angesehen, die keinen andern Grund, als ein Motiv, d. h. eine Vorstellung haben; daher man in der Natur allein dem Menschen und allenfalls den Thieren einen Willen beilegte; weil das Erkennen, das Vorstellen, allerdings, wie ich an einem andern Orte schon erwähnt habe, der ächte und ausschließende Charakter der Thierheit ist. Allein daß der Wille auch da wirkt, wo keine Erkenntniß ihn leitet, sehen wir zu allernächst an dem Instinkt und den Kunsttrieben der Thiere⁹. Daß sie Vorstellungen und Erkenntniß haben, kommt hier gar nicht in Betracht, da der Zweck, zu dem sie gerade so hinwirken, als wäre er ein erkanntes Motiv, von ihnen ganz unerkannt bleibt; daher ihr Handeln hier ohne Motiv geschieht, nicht von der Vorstellung geleitet ist und uns zuerst und am deutlichsten zeigt, wie der Wille auch ohne alle Erkenntniß thätig ist. Der einjährige Vogel hat keine Vorstellung von den Eiern, für die er ein Nest baut; die junge Spinne nicht von dem Raube, zu dem sie ein Netz wirkt; noch der Ameisenlöwe von der Ameise, der er zum ersten Male eine Grube gräbt; die Larve des Hirschschröters beißt das Loch im Holze, wo sie ihre Verwandelung bestehen will, noch einmal so groß, wenn sie ein männlicher, als wenn sie ein weiblicher Käfer werden will, im ersten Fall um Platz für Hörner zu haben, von denen sie noch keine Vorstellung hat. In solchem Thun dieser Thiere ist doch offenbar, wie in ihrem übrigen Thun, der Wille thätig: aber er ist in blinder Thätigkeit, die zwar von Erkenntniß begleitet, aber nicht von ihr geleitet ist. Haben wir nun einmal die Einsicht erlangt, daß Vorstellung als Motiv keine nothwendige und wesentliche Bedingung der Thätigkeit des Willens ist; so werden wir das Wirken des Willens nun auch leichter in Fällen wiedererkennen, wo es weniger augenfällig ist, und dann z. B. so wenig das Haus der Schnecke einem ihr selbst fremden, aber von Erkenntniß geleiteten Willen zuschreiben, als das Haus, welches wir selbst bauen, durch einen andern Willen als unsern eigenen ins Daseyn tritt; sondern wir werden beide Häuser für Werke des in beiden Erscheinungen sich objektivirenden Willens erkennen, der in uns nach Motiven, in der Schnecke aber noch blind, als nach Außen gerichteter Bildungstrieb wirkt. Auch in uns wirkt der selbe Wille vielfach blind: in allen den Funktionen unseres Leibes, welche keine Erkenntniß leitet, in allen seinen vitalen und vegetativen Prozessen, [10] Von diesen handelt speciell Kap. 27 des zweiten Bandes.

Verdauung, Blutumlauf, Sekretion, Wachsthum, Reproduktion. Nicht nur die Aktionen des Leibes, sondern er selbst ganz und gar ist, wie oben nachgewiesen, Erscheinung des Willens, objektivirter Wille, konkreter Wille: alles was in ihm vorgeht, muß daher durch Wille vorgehen, obwohl hier dieser Wille nicht von Erkenntniß geleitet ist, nicht nach Motiven sich bestimmt, sondern, blind wirkend, nach Ursachen, die in diesem Fall Reize heißen.

Ich nenne nämlich Ursach, im engsten Sinne des Worts, denjenigen Zustand der Materie, der, indem er einen andern mit Nothwendigkeit herbeiführt, selbst eine ebenso große Veränderung erleidet, wie die ist, welche er verursacht, welches durch die Regel „Wirkung und Gegenwirkung sind sich gleich“ ausgedrückt wird. Ferner wächst, bei der eigentlichen Ursach, die Wirkung genau in eben dem Verhältniß wie die Ursach, die Gegenwirkung also wieder auch; so daß, wenn einmal die Wirkungsart bekannt ist, aus dem Grade der Intensität der Ursach der Grad der Wirkung sich messen und berechnen läßt, und so auch umgekehrt. Solche eigentlich sogenannte Ursachen wirken in allen Erscheinungen des Mechanismus, Chemismus u. s. w., kurz, bei allen Veränderungen unorganischer Körper. Ich nenne dagegen Reiz diejenige Ursach, die selbst keine ihrer Wirkung angemessene Gegenwirkung erleidet, und deren Intensität durchaus nicht dem Grade nach parallel geht mit der Intensität der Wirkung, welche daher nicht nach jener gemessen werden kann: vielmehr kann eine kleine Vermehrung des Reizes eine sehr große in der Wirkung veranlassen, oder auch umgekehrt die vorherige Wirkung ganz aufheben u. s. w. Dieser Art ist alle Wirkung auf organische Körper als solche: auf Reize also, nicht auf bloße Ursachen, gehen alle eigentlich organischen und vegetativen Veränderungen im thierischen Leibe vor. Der Reiz aber, wie überhaupt jede Ursach, und ebenso das Motiv, bestimmt nie mehr, als den Eintrittspunkt der Aeußerung jeder Kraft in Zeit und Raum, nicht das innere Wesen der sich äußernden Kraft selbst, welches wir, unserer vorhergegangenen Ableitung gemäß, für Wille erkennen, dem wir daher sowohl die bewußtlosen, als die bewußten Veränderungen des Leibes zuschreiben. Der Reiz hält das Mittel, macht den Uebergang zwischen dem Motiv, welches die durch das Erkennen hindurhgegangene Kausalität ist, und der Ursach im engsten Sinn. In den einzelnen Fällen liegt er bald dem Motiv, bald der Ursach näher, ist indessen doch noch immer von beiden zu unterscheiden: so geschieht z. B. das Steigen der Säfte in den Pflanzen auf Reiz und ist nicht aus bloßen Ursachen, nach den Gesezen der Hydraulik, nochh der Haarröhrchen, zu erklären: dennochh wird es wohl von diesen unterstützt und ist überhaupt der rein ursächlichen Veränderung schon sehr nahe. Hingegen sind die Bewegungen des Hedysarum gyrans und der Mimosa pudica, obwohl noch auf bloße Reize erfolgend, dennoch schon denen auf Motive sehr ähnlich und scheinen fast den Uebergang machen zu wollen. Die Verengerung der Pupille bei vermehrtem Lichte geschieht auf Reiz, aber geht schon über in die Bewegung auf Motiv; da sie geschieht, weil das zu starke Licht die Retina schmerzlich affiziren würde und wir, dies zu vermeiden, die Pupille zusammenziehen. — Der Anlaß der Erektion ist ein Motiv, da er eine Vorstellung ist; er wirkt jedoch mit der Nothwendigkeit eines Reizes: d. h. ihm kann nicht widerstanden werden, sondern man muß ihn entfernen, um ihn unwirksam zu machen. Ebenso verhält es sich mit ekelhaften Gegenständen, welche Neigung zum Erbrechen erregen. Als ein wirkliches Mittelglied ganz anderer Art zwischen der Bewegung auf Reiz und dem Handeln nach einem erkannten Motiv haben wir soeben den Instinkt der Thiere betrachtet. Noch als ein anderes Mittelglied dieser Art könnte man versucht werden, das Athemholen anzusehen: man hat nämlich gestritten, ob es zu den willkürlichen oder zu den unwillkürlichen Bewegungen gehöre, d. h. eigentlich ob es auf Motiv, oder Reiz erfolge, danach es sich vielleicht für ein Mittelding zwischen beiden erklären ließe. Marshall Hall („On the diseases of the nervous system“, §. 293 sq.) erklärt es für eine gemischte Funktion, da es unter dem Einfluß theils der Cerebral- (willkürlichen) theils der Spinal- (unwillkürlichen) Neroen steht. Indessen müssen wir es zulegt doch den auf Motiv erfolgenden Willensäußerungen beizählen: denn andere Motive, d. h. bloße Vorstellungen, können den Willen bestimmen es zu hemmen oder zu beschleunigen, und es hat, wie jede andere willkürliche Handlung, den Schein, daß man es ganz unterlassen könnte und frei ersticken. Dies könnte man auch in der That, sobald irgend ein anderes Motiv so stark den Willen bestimmte, daß es das dringende Bedürfniß nach Luft überwöge. Nach Einigen soll Diogenes wirklich auf diese Weise seinem Leben ein Ende gemacht haben (Diog. Laert. VI, 76). Auch Neger sollen dies gethan haben (F. B. Osiander, „Ueber den Selbstmord“ 1813, S. 170—180). Wir hätten daran ein starkes Beispiel vom Einfluß abstrakter Motive, d. h. von der Uebermacht des eigentlich vernünftigen Wollens über das bloß thierishe. Für das wenigstens theilweise Bedingtseyn des Athmens durch cerebrale Thätigkeit spricht die Thatsache, daß Blausäure zunächst dadurch tódtet, daß sie das Gehirn lähmt und so mittelbar das Athmen hemmt: wird aber dieses künstlich unterhalten, bis jene Betäubung des Gehirns vorüber ist, so tritt gar kein Tod ein. Zugleich giebt uns hier beiläufig das Athemholen das augenfälligste Beispiel davon, daß Motive mit eben so großer Nothwendigkeit, wie Reize und bloße Ursachen im engsten Sinne wirken, und eben nur durch entgegengeseßte Motive, wie Druck durch Gegendruck, außer Wirksamkeit geseßt werden können: denn beim Athmen ist der Schein des Unterlassenkönnens ungleich schwächer, als bei anderen auf Motive erfolgenden Bewegungen; weil das Motiv dort sehr dringend, sehr nah, seine Befriedigung, wegen der Unermüdlichkeit der sie vollziehenden Muskeln, sehr leicht, ihr in der Regel nichts entgegenstehend und das Ganze durch die älteste Gewohnheit des Individuums unterstüzt ist. Und doch wirken eigentlich alle Motive mit der selben Nothwendigkeit. Die Erkenntniß, daß die Nothwendigkeit den Bewegungen auf Motive mit denen auf Reize gemeinschaftlich ist, wird uns die Einsicht erleichtern, daß auch Das, was im organischen Leibe auf Reize und völlig gesezmäßig vor sich geht, dennoch seinem innern Wesen nach Wille ist, der zwar nie an sich, aber in allen seinen Erscheinungen dem Sayg vom Grund, d. h. der Nothwendigkeit unterworfen ist¹¹. Wir werden demnach nicht dabei stehen bleiben, die Thiere, wie in ihrem Handeln, so auch in ihrem ganzen Daseyn, Korporisation [12] Diese Erkenntniß wird durch meine Preisschrift über die Freiheit des Willens völlig festgestellt, woselbst (S. 30—44 der „Grundprobleme der Ethik“) daher auch das Verhältniß zwischen Ursache, Reiz und Motiv seine ausführliche Erörterung erhalten hat., und Organisation als Willenserscheinungen zu erkennen; sondern werden diese uns allein gegebene unmittelbare Erkenntniß des Wesens an sich der Dinge auch auf die Pflanzen übertragen, deren sämmtliche Bewegungen auf Reize erfolgen, da die Abwesenheit der Erkenntniß und der durch diese bedingten Bewegung auf Motive allein den wesentlichen Unterschied zwischen Thier und Pflanze ausmacht. Wir werden also was für die Vorstellung als Pflanze, als bloße Vegetation, blind treibende Kraft erscheint, seinem Wesen an sich nach, für Willen ansprehen und für eben Das erkennen, was die Basis unserer eigenen Erscheinung ausmacht, wie sie sich in unserm Thun und auch schon im ganzen Daseyn unseres Leibes selbst ausspricht.

Es bleibt uns nur noch der lezte Schritt zu thun übrig, die Ausdehnung unserer Betrachtungsweise auch auf alle jene Kräfte, welche in der Natur nach allgemeinen, unveränderlichen Gesezen wirken, denen gemäß die Bewegungen aller der Körper erfolgen, welche, ganz ohne Organe, für den Reiz keine Empfänglichkeit und für das Motiv keine Erkenntniß haben. Wir müssen also den Schlüssel zum Verständniß des Wesens an sich der Dinge, welchen uns die unmittelbare Erkenntniß unseres eigenen Wesens allein geben konnte, auch an diese Erscheinungen der unorganischen Welt legen, die von allen im weitesten Abstande von uns stehen. — Wenn wir sie nun mit forschendem Blicke betrachten, wenn wir den gewaltigen, unaufhaltsamen Drang sehen, mit dem die Gewässer der Tiefe zueilen, die Beharrlichkeit, mit welcher der Magnet sich immer wieder zum Nordpol wendet, die Sehnsucht, mit der das Eisen zu ihm fliegt, die Heftigkeit, mit welcher die Pole der Elektricität zur Wiedervereinigung streben, und welche, gerade wie die der menschlichen Wünsche, durch Hindernisse gesteigert wird; wenn wir den Krystall schnell und plötzlich anschießen sehen, mit so viel Regelmäßigkeit der Bildung, die offenbar nur eine von Erstarrung ergriffene und festgehaltene ganz entschiedene und genau bestimmte Bestrebung nach verschiedenen Richtungen ist; wenn wir die Auswahl bemerken, mit der die Körper, durch den Zustand der Flüssigkeit in Freiheit gesezt und den Banden der Starrheit entzogen, sih suchen und fliehen, vereinigen und trennen; wenn wir endlih ganz unmittelbar fühlen, wie eine Last, deren Streben zur Erdmasse unser Leib hemmt, auf diesen unablässig drückt und drängt, ihre einzige Bestrebung verfolgend; — so wird es uns keine große Anstrengung der Einbildungskraft kosten, selbst aus so großer Entfernung unser eigenes Wesen wiederzuerkennen, jenes Nämliche, das in uns beim Lichte der Erkenntniß seine Zwecke verfolgt, hier aber, in den schwächsten seiner Erscheinungen, nur blind, dumpf, einseitig und unveränderlich strebt, jedoch, weil es überall Eines und das Selbe ist, — so gut wie die erste Morgendämmerung mit den Strahlen des vollen Mittags den Namen des Sonnenlichts theilt, — auch hier wie dort den Namen Wille führen muß, welcher Das bezeichnet, was das Seyn an sich jedes Dinges in der Welt und der alleinige Kern jeder Erscheinung ist.

Der Abstand jedoch, ja der Schein einer gänzlichen Verschiedenheit zwischen den Erscheinungen der unorganischen Natur und dem Willen, den wir als das Innere unseres eigenen Wesens wahrnehmen, entsteht vorzüglich aus dem Kontrast zwischen der völlig bestimmten Gesetzmäßigkeit in der einen und der scheinbar regellosen Willkür in der andern Art der Erscheinung. Denn im. Menschen tritt die Individualität mächtig hervor: ein Jeder hat einen eigenen Charakter: daher hat auch das selbe Motiv nicht auf Alle die gleiche Gewalt, und tausend Nebenumstände, die in der weiten Erkenntnißsphäre des Individuums Raum haben, aber Andern unbekannt bleiben, modificiren seine Wirkung; weshalb sich aus dem Motiv allein die Handlung nicht vorherbestimmen läßt, weil der andere Faktor fehlt, die genaue Kenntniß des individuellen Charakters und der ihn begleitenden Erkenntniß. Hingegen zeigen die Erscheinungen der Naturkräfte hier das andere Extrem: sie wirken nach allgemeinen Gesetzen, ohne Abweichung, ohne Individualität, nach offen darliegenden Umständen, der genauesten Vorherbestimmung unterworfen, und die selbe Naturkraft äußert sich in den Millionen ihrer Erscheinungen genau auf gleiche Weise. Wir müssen, um diesen Punkt aufzuklären, um.die Identität des einen und untheilbaren Willens in allen seinen so verschiedenen Erscheinungen, in den schwächsten, wie in den stärksten, nachzuweisen, zuvörderst das Verhältniß betrachten, welches der Wille als Ding an sich zu seiner Erscheinung, d. h. die Welt als Wille zur Welt als Vorstellung hat, wodurch sich uns der beste Weg öffnen wird zu einer tiefer gehenden Erforschung des gesammten in diesem zweiten Buch behandelten Gegenstandes [13].

24 Wir haben von dem großen Kant gelernt, daß Zeit, Raum und Kausalität, ihrer ganzen Gesezmäßigkeit und der Möglichkeit aller ihrer Formen nach, in unserm Bewußtseyn vorhanden sind, ganz unabhängig von den Objekten, die in ihnen erscheinen die ihren Inhalt ausmachen, oder mit anderen Worten: daß sie eben sowohl, wenn man vom Subjekt, als wenn man vom Objekt ausgeht, gefunden werden können; daher man fie mit gleichem Recht Anschauungsweisen des Subjekts, oder auch Beschaffenheiten des Objekts, sofern es Objekt (bei Kant: Erscheinung) d. h. Vorstellung ist, nennen kann. Auch kann man jene Formen ansehen als die untheilbare Gränze zwischen Objekt und Subjekt: daher zwar alles Objekt in ihnen erscheinen muß, aber auh das Subjekt, unabhängig vom erscheinenden Objekt, fie vollständig besit und übersieht. — Sollten nun aber die in diesen Formen erscheinenden Objekte nicht leere Phantome seyn; sondern eine Bedeutung haben: so müßten sie auf etwas deuten, der Ausdruck von etwas seyn, das nicht wieder wie sie selbst Objekt, Vorstellung, ein nur relativ, nämlih für ein Subjekt, Vorhandenes wäre; sondern welches ohne solche Abhängigkeit von einem ihm als wesentliche Bedingung Gegenüberstehenden und dessen Formen existirte, d. h. eben keine Vorstellung, sondern ein Ding an sich wäre. Demnach ließe sich wenigstens fragen: sind jene Vorstellungen, jene Objekte, noch etwas außerdem und abgesehen davon, daß sie Vorstellungen, Objekte des Subjekts sind? Und was alsdann wären fie in diesem Sinn? Was if jene ihre andere von der Vorstellung toto genere verschiedene Seite? Was ist das Ding an sich? — Der Wille: ist unsere Antwort gewesen, die ich jedoch für jetzt bei Seite setze.

14 Hiezu Kap. 23 des zweiten Bandes, imgleichen, in meiner Schrift „über den Willen in der Natur,“ das Kapitel „Pflanzenphysiologie“ und das für den Kern meiner Metaphyfif überaus wichtige Kapitel „Physische Astronomie.“

Was auch immer das Ding an sich sei, so hat Kant richtig geschlossen, daß Zeit, Raum und Kausalität (die wir späterhin als Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde, und diesen als allgemeinen Ausdruck der Formen der Erscheinung erkannt haben) nicht Bestimmungen desselben seyn, sondern ihm erst zukomnen konnten, nahdem und sofern es Vorstellung geworden, d. h. nur feiner Erscheinung angehörten, nicht ihm selbst. Denn da das Subjekt sie aus sich selbst, unabhängig von allem Objekt, vollständig erkennt und konstruirt; so müssen sie dem Vorstellungseyn als solchem anhängen, nicht Dem, was Vorstellung wird. Sie müssen die Form der Vorstellung als solcher, nicht aber Eigenschaften Dessen seyn, was diese Form angenommen hat. Sie müssen schon mit dem bloßen Gegensatz von Subjekt und Objekt (nicht im Begriff, sondern in der That) gegeben seyn, folglich ‘nur die nähere Bestimmung der Form der Erkenntniß überhaupt seyn, deren allgemeinste Bestimmung jener Gegensatzz selbst ist. Was nun in der Erscheinung, im Objekt, wiederum durch Zeit, Raum und Kausalität bedingt ‘ist, indem es nur mittelst derselben vorgestellt wérden kann, nämlich Vielheit, durch das Neben- und Nacheinander, Wechsel und Dauer, durch das Gesetz der Kausalität, und die nur unter Voraussegung der Kausalität vorstellbare Materie, endlich alles wieder nur mittelst dieser Vorstellbare, — dieses Alles insgesammt ist Dem, das da erscheint, das in die Form der Vorstellung eingegangen ist, wesentlich nicht eigen, sondern hängt nur dieser Form selbst an. Umgekehrt aber wird Dasjenige in der Erscheinung, was nicht durch Zeit, Raum und Kausalität bedingt, noch auf diese zurüfzuführen, noch nach diefen zu erklären ist, gerade Das seyn, worin sich unmittelbar das Erscheinende, das Ding an sich kund giebt. Diesem zufolge wird nun die vollfommenste Erkennbarkeit, dd. h. die größte Klarheit, Deutlichkeit und ershöpfende Ergründlichkeit, nothwendig Dem zukommen, was der Erkenntniß als solcher eigen ist, also der Form der Erkenntniß; nicht aber Dem, was, an sich nicht Vorstellung, nicht Objekt, erst durch das Eingehen in diese Formen erkennbar, d. h. Vorstellung, Objekt, geworden ift. Nur Das alfo, was alleín abhángi vom Erkanntwerden, vom Vorstellungseyn überhaupt und als solchem (nicht von Dem, was erkannt wird, und er zur Vorstellung geworden ist), was daher Allem, das erkannt wird, ohne Unterschied zukommt, was eben deswegen so gut wenn man vom Subjekt, als wenn man vom Objekt ausgeht, gefunden wird, — Dies allein wird ohne Rückhalt eine genügende, völlig erschöpfende bis auf den letzten Grund klare Erkenntniß gewähren könuen. Dieses aber besteht in nichts Anderem, als in den uns a priori bewußten Formen aller Erscheinung, die sich gemeinschaftlih als Satz vom Grunde aussprechen lassen, dessen auf die anschauliche Erkenntniß (mit der wir hier es ausschließlich zu thun haben) sich beziehenden Geftalten Zeit, Raum und Kausalität sind. Auf sie allein gegründet ist die gesammte reine Mathematik und die reine Naturwissenschaft a priori. Nur in diesen Wissenschaften daher findet die Erkenntniß keine Dunkelheit, stößt nicht auf das Unergründliche (Grundlose d. i. Wille), auf das nicht weiter Abzuleitendez in welcher Hinsicht auch Kant, wie gesagt, jene Erkenntnisse vorzugsweise, ja ausschlieplih, nebst der Logik, Wissenschaften nennen wollte. Andererseits aber zeigen uns diese.Erkenntnisse weiter nichts, als bloße Verhältnisse, Relationen einer Vorstellung zur andern, Form, ohne allen Inhalt. Jeder Inhalt, den sie bekommen, jede Erscheinung, die jene Formen füllt, enthält schon etwas nicht mehr vollständig seinem ganzen Wesen nach Erkennbares, nicht mehr durch ein Anderes ganz und gar zu Erklärendes, also etwas Grundloses, wodurch fogleich die Ere fenntniß an Evidenz verliert und die volllommene Durchsichtigkeit einbüßt. Dieses der Ergründung sich Entziehende aber ist eben das Ding an sich, ist dasjenige, was wesentlich nicht Vorstellung, nicht Objekt der Erkenntniß ist; sondern erst indem es in jene Form eingieng, erkennbar geworden ist. Die Form ist ihm ursprünglich fremd, und es kann nie ganz Eins mit ihr werden, kann nie auf die bloße Form zurückgeführt, und, da diese der Satz vom Grund ist, also nicht vollständig ergründet werden. Wenn daher auch alle Mathematik uns erschöpfende Erkenntniß giebt von Dem, was an den Erscheinungen Größe, Lage, Zahl, kurz, räumliches und zeitliches Verhältniß ist, wenn alle Aetiologie uns die gesezmäßigen Bedingungen, unter denen die Erschei nungen, mit allen ihren Bestimmungen, in Zeit und Raum eintreten, vollständig angiebt, bei dem Allen aber doh nicht mehr lehrt, als.jedesmal warum eine jede bestimmte Erscheinung gerade jetzt hier und gerade hier jetzt sich zeigen muß; so dringen wir mit deren Hülfe doch nimmermehr in das innere Wesen der Dinge, so bleibt dennoch immer Etwas, daran sich keine Erklärung wagen darf, sondern das sie immer voraussezt, nämlich die Kräfte der Natur, die bestimmte Wirkungsart der Dinge, die Qualität, der Charakter jeder Erscheinung, das Grundlose, was nicht von der Form der Erscheinung, dem Satz vom Grunde, abhängt, dem diese Form an sich fremd ist, das aber in sie eingegangen ist, und nun nach ihrem Gesetz hervortritt, welches Gesetz aber eben auch nur das Hervortreten bestimmt, nicht Das, was hervortritt, nur das Wie, nicht das Was der Erscheinung, nur die Form, nicht den Inhalt. — Mechanik, Physik, Chemie lehren die Regeln und Gesetze, nach denen die Kräfte der Undurchdringlichkeit, Schwere, Starrheit, Flüssigkeit, Kohäsion, Elasticität, Wärme, Licht, Wahlverwandschaften, Magnetismus, Elektricität u. s. w. wirken, d. h. das Gesetz, die Regel, welche diese. Kräfte.in Hinsicht auf ihren jedesmaligen Eintritt in Zeit und Raum beobachten: die Kräfte selbst aber bleiben dabei, wie man sich auch geberden mag, qualitates occultae. Denn es ist eben das Ding an sich, welches, indem es erscheint, jene Phänomene darstellt, von ihnen selbst gänzlich verschieden, zwar in seiner Erscheinung dem Satz vom Grund, als der Form der Vorstellung, völlig unterworfen, selbst aber nie auf diese Form zurüzuführen, und daher nicht ätiologish bis auf das Letzte zu erklären, nicht jemals vollständig zu ergründen; zwar völlig begreiflich, sofern es jene Form angenommen hat, d. h. sofern es Erscheinung ist; seinem innern Wesen nach aber durch jene Begreiflichkeit nicht im Mindesten erklärt. Daher, je mehr Nothwendigkeit eine Erkenntniß mit sich führt, je mehr in ihr von Dem ist, was sich gar nicht anders denken und vorstellen läßt — wie z. B. die räumlichen Verhältnisse —, je klärer und genügender sie daher ist; desto weniger rein objektiven Gehalt hat sie, oder desto weniger eigentliche Realität ist in ihr gegeben: und umgekehrt, je Mehreres in ihr als rein zufällig aufgefaßt werden muß, je Mehreres sich uns als bloß empirisch gegeben aufdringt; desto mehr eigentlich Objektives und wahrhaft Reales ist in solcher Erkenntniß; aber auch zugleih desto mehr Unerklärliches, d. h. aus Anderm nicht weiter Ableitbares.

Freilich hat zu allen Zeiten eine ihr Ziel verkennende Aetiologie dahin gestrebt, alles organische Leben auf Chemismus, oder Elektricität, allen Chemismus, d. i. Qualität, wieder auf Mechanismus (Wirkung durch die Gestalt der Atome), diesen aber wieder theils auf den Gegenstand der Phoronomie, d. i. Zeit und Raum zur Möglichkeit der Bewegung vereint, theils auf den der bloßen Geometrie, d. i. Lage im Raum, zurückzuführen (ungefähr so, wie man, mit Recht, die Abnahme einer Wirkung nach dem Quadrat der Entfernung und die Theorie des Hebels rein geometrisch construirt): die Geometrie läßt sich endlich in Arithmetik auflösen, welche die, wegen Einheit der Dimension, faßlichste, übersehbarste, bis aufs Letzte ergründliche Gestaltung des Satzes vom Grunde ist. Belege zu der hier allgemein bezeichneten Methode sind: des Demokritos Atome, des Cartesius Wirbel, die mechanische Physik des Lesage, welcher, gegen Ende des vorigen Jahrhunderts, sowohl die chemischen Affinitäten, als auch die Gravitation mechanisch, durch Stoß und Druck zu erklären suchte wie des Näheren zu ersehen aus dem „Lucrèce Neutonien“; auch Reils Form und Mischung als Ursache des thierischen Lebens tendirt dahin: ganz dieser Art ist endlich der eben jetzt, in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts wieder aufgewärmte, aus Unwissenheit sich original dünkende, rohe Materialismus, welcher zunächst, unter stupider Ableugnung der Lebenskraft, die Erscheinungen des Lebens aus physikalischen und chemischen Kräften erklären, diese aber wieder aus dem mechanischen Wirken der Materie, Lage, Gestalt und Bewegung erträumter Atome entstehen lassen und so alle Kräfte der Natur auf Stoß und Gegenstoß zurückführen möchte, als welche sein „Ding an sich“ sind. Demgemäß soll dann sogar das Licht das mechanische Vibriren, oder gar Unduliren, eines imaginären und zu diesem Zweck postulirten Aethers seyn, welcher, wenn angelangt, auf der Retina trommelt, wo dann z. B. 483 Billionen Trommelschläge in der Sekunde Roth, und 727 Billionen Violett geben u. s. f.: die Farbeblinden wären dann wohl Solche, welche die Trommelschläge nicht zählen können: nicht wahr? Dergleichen krasse, mechanische, demokritische, plumpe und wahrhaft knollige Theorien sind ganz der Leute würdig, die, funfzig Jahre nach dem Erscheinen der Goetheschen Farbenlehre, noch an Neutons homogene Lichter glauben und sich nicht schämen es zu sagen. Sie werden erfahren, daß was man dem Kinde (dem Demokrit) nachsieht, dem Manne nicht verziehen wird. Sie könnten sogar einst schmählich enden: aber dann schleicht Jeder davon, und thut als wäre er nicht dabei gewesen. Wir werden auf diese falsche Zurückführung ursprünglicher Naturkräfte auf einander bald nochmals zu reden kommen: hier nur soviel. Gesetzt dieses gienge so an, so wäre freilich Alles erklärt und ergründet, ja zuletzt auf ein Rechnungsexempel zurückgeführt, welches dann das Allerheiligste im Tempel der Weisheit wäre, zu welchem der Satz vom Grunde am Ende glücklich geleitet hätte. Aber aller Inhalt der Erscheinung wäre verschwunden, und bloße Form übrig geblieben: Das, was da erscheint, wäre zurückgeführt auf Das, wie es erscheint, und dieses wie wäre das auch a priori Erkennbare, daher ganz abhängig vom Subjekt, daher allein für dasselbe, daher endlich bloßes Phantom, Vorstellung und Form der Vorstellung durch und durch: nach keinem Ding an sich könnte gefragt werden. — Es wäre demnach, gesetzt dies gienge so an, dann wirklich die ganze Welt aus dem Subjekt abgeleitet und in der That Das geleistet, was Fichte durch seine Windbeuteleien zu leisten scheinen wollte. — Nun aber geht es nicht so an: Phantasien, Sophistikationen, Luftschlösser hat man in jener Art zu Stande gebracht, keine Wissenschaft. Es ist gelungen, und gab, so oft es gelang, einen wahren Fortschritt, die vielen und mannigfaltigen Erscheinungen in der Natur auf einzelne ursprüngliche Kräfte zurückzuführen: man hat mehrere, Anfangs für verschieden gehaltene Kräfte und Qualitäten eine aus der andern abgeleitet (z. B. den Magnetismus aus der Elektricität) und so ihre Zahl vermindert: die Aetiologie wird am Ziele seyn, wenn sie alle ursprünglichen Kräfte der Natur als solche erkannt und aufgestellt, und ihre Wirkungsarten, d. h. die Regel, nach der, am Leitfaden der Kausalität, ihre Erscheinungen in Zeit und Raum eintreten und sich unter einander ihre Stelle bestimmen, festgesetzt haben wird: aber stets werden Urkräfte übrig bleiben, stets wird, als unauflösliches Residuum, ein Inhalt der Erscheinung bleiben, der nicht auf ihre Form zurückzuführen, also nicht nach dem Satz vom Grunde aus etwas Anderem zu erklären ist. — Denn in jedem Ding in der Natur ist etwas, davon kein Grund je angegeben werden kann, keine Erklärung möglich, keine Ursache weiter zu suchen ist: es ist die specifische Art seines Wirkens, d. h. eben die Art seines Daseyns, sein Wesen. Zwar von jeder einzelnen Wirkung des Dinges ist eine Ursach nachzuweisen, aus welcher folgt, daß es gerade jetzt, gerade hier wirken mußte: aber davon daß es überhaupt und gerade so wirkt, nie. Hat es keine anderen Eigenschaften, ist es ein Sonnenstäubchen, so zeigt es wenigstens als Schwere und Undurchdringlichkeit jenes unergründliche Etwas: dieses aber, sage ich, ist ihm, was dem Menschen sein Wille ist, und ist, so wie dieser, seinem innern Wesen nach, der Erklärung nicht unterworfen, ja, ist an sich mit diesem identisch. Wohl läßt sich für jede Aeußerung des Willens, für jeden einzelnen Akt desselben zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort, ein Motiv nachweisen, auf welches er, unter Voraussetzung des Charakters des Menschen, nothwendig erfolgen mußte. Aber daß er diesen Charakter hat, daß er überhaupt will, daß von mehreren Motiven gerade dieses und kein anderes, ja, daß irgend eines seinen Willen bewegt, davon ist kein Grund je anzugeben. Was dem Menschen sein unergründlicher, bei aller Erklärung seiner Thaten aus Motiven vorausgesetzter Charakter ist; eben das ist jedem unorganischen Körper seine wesentliche Qualität, die Art seines Wirkens, deren Aeußerungen hervorgerufen werden durch Einwirkung von Außen, während hingegen sie selbst durch nichts außer ihr bestimmt, also auch nicht erklärlich ist: ihre einzelnen Erscheinungen, durch welche allein sie sichtbar wird, sind dem Satz vom Grund unterworfen: sie selbst ist grundlos. Schon die Scholastiker hatten Dies im Wesentlichen richtig erkannt und als forma substantialis bezeichnet. (Worüber Suarez, Disput. metaph., disp. XV, sect. 1.)

Es ist ein ebenso großer, wie gewöhnlicher Irrthum, daß die häufigsten, allgemeinsten und einfachsten Erscheinungen es wären, die wir am besten verständen; da sie doch vielmehr nur diejenigen sind, an deren Anblick und unsere Unwissenheit darüber wir uns am meisten gewöhnt haben. Es ist uns ebenso unerklärlich, daß ein Stein zur Erde fällt, als daß ein Thier sich bewegt. Man hat, wie oben erwähnt, vermeint, daß man, von den allgemeinsten Naturkräften (z. B. Gravitation, Kohäsion, Undurchdringlichkeit) ausgehend, aus ihnen die seltener und nur unter kombinirten Umständen wirkenden (z. B. chemische Qualität, Elektricität, Magnetismus) erklären, zuletzt aus diesen wieder den Organismus und das Leben der Thiere, ja des Menschen Erkennen und Wollen verstehen würde. Man fügte sich stillschweigend darin, von lauter qualitates occultae auszugehen, deren Aufhellung ganz aufgegeben wurde, da man über ihnen zu bauen, nicht sie zu unterwühlen vorhatte. Dergleichen kann, wie gesagt, nicht gelingen. Aber abgesehen davon, so stände solches Gebäude immer in der Luft. Was helfen Erklärungen, die zuletzt auf ein eben so Unbekanntes, als das erste Problem war, zurückführen? Versteht man aber am Ende vom innern Wesen jener allgemeinen Naturkräfte mehr, als vom innern Wesen eines Thieres? Ist nicht eines so unerforscht, wie das andere? Unergründlich, weil es grundlos, weil es der Inhalt, das Was der Erscheinung ist, das nie auf ihre Form, auf das Wie, auf den Satz vom Grunde, zurückgeführt werden kann. Wir aber, die wir hier nicht Aetiologie, sondern Philosophie, d. i. nicht relative, sondern unbedingte Erkenntniß vom Wesen der Welt beabsichtigen, schlagen den entgegengesetzten Weg ein und gehen von Dem, was uns unmittelbar, was uns am vollständigsten bekannt und ganz und gar vertraut ist, was uns am nächsten liegt, aus, um Das zu verstehen, was uns nur entfernt, einseitig und mittelbar bekannt ist: und aus der mächtigsten, bedeutendsten, deutlichsten Erscheinung wollen wir die unvollkommenere, schwächere verstehen lernen. Mir ist von allen Dingen, meinen eigenen Leib ausgenommen, nur eine Seite bekannt, die der Vorstellung: ihr inneres Wesen bleibt mir verschlossen und ein tiefes Geheimniß, auch wenn ich alle Ursachen kenne, auf die ihre Veränderungen erfolgen. Nur aus der Vergleichung mit Dem, was in mir vorgeht, wenn, indem ein Motiv mich bewegt, mein Leib eine Aktion ausübt, was das innere Wesen meiner eigenen durch äußere Gründe bestimmten Veränderungen ist, kann ich Einsicht erhalten in die Art und Weise, wie jene leblosen Körper sich auf Ursachen verändern, und so verstehen, was ihr inneres Wesen sei, von dessen Erscheinen mir die Kenntniß der Ursache die bloße Regel des Eintritts in Zeit und Raum angiebt und weiter nichts. Dies kann ich darum, weil mein Leib das einzige Objekt ist, von dem ich nicht bloß die eine Seite, die der Vorstellung, kenne, sondern auch die zweite, welche Wille heißt. Statt also zu glauben, ich würde meine eigene Organisation, dann mein Erkennen und Wollen und meine Bewegung auf Motive, besser verstehen, wenn ich sie nur zurückführen könnte auf Bewegung aus Ursachen, durch Elektricität, durch Chemismus, durch Mechanismus; muß ich, sofern ich Philosophie, nicht Aetiologie suche, umgekehrt auch die einfachsten und gemeinsten Bewegungen des unorganischen Körpers, die ich auf Ursachen erfolgen sehe, zuvörderst ihrem innern Wesen nach verstehen lernen aus meiner eigenen Bewegung auf Motive, und die unergründlichen Kräfte, welche sich in allen Körpern der Natur äußern, für der Art nach als identisch mit Dem erkennen, was in mir der Wille ist, und für nur dem Grade nach davon verschieden. Dies heißt: die in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grund aufgestellte vierte Klasse der Vorstellungen muß mir der Schlüssel werden zur Erkenntniß des innern Wesens der ersten Klasse, und aus dem Gesetz der Motivation muß ich das Gesetz der Kausalität, seiner innern Bedeutung nach, verstehen lernen.

Spinoza sagt (epist. 62), daß der durch einen Stoß in die Luft fliegende Stein, wenn er Bewußtseyn hätte, meinen würde, aus seinem eigenen Willen zu fliegen. Ich setze nur noch hinzu, daß der Stein Recht hätte. Der Stoß ist für ihn, was für mich das Motiv, und was bei ihm als Kohäsion, Schwere, Beharrlichkeit im angenommenen Zustande erscheint, ist, dem innern Wesen nach, das Selbe, was ich in mir als Willen erkenne, und was, wenn auch bei ihm die Erkenntniß hinzuträte, auch er als Willen erkennen würde. Spinoza, an jener Stelle, hatte sein Augenmerk auf die Nothwendigkeit, mit welcher der Stein fliegt, gerichtet und will sie, mit Recht, übertragen auf die Nothwendigkeit des einzelnen Willensaktes einer Person. Ich hingegen betrachte das innere Wesen, welches aller realen Nothwendigkeit (d. i. Wirkung aus Ursache), als ihre Voraussetzung, erst Bedeutung und Gültigkeit ertheilt, beim Menschen Charakter, beim Stein Qualität heißt, in beiden aber das Selbe ist, da wo es unmittelbar erkannt wird, Wille genannt, und welches im Stein den schwächsten, im Menschen den stärksten Grad der Sichtbarkeit, Objektität, hat. — Dieses im Streben aller Dinge mit unserm Wollen Identische hat sogar der heilige Augustinus, mit richtigem Gefühl, erkannt, und ich kann mich nicht entbrechen, seinen naiven Ausdruck der Sache herzusetzen: Si pecora essemus, carnalem vitam et quod secundum sensum ejusdem est amaremus, idque esset sufficiens bonum nostrum, et secundum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud quaereremus. Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus: verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, uberiusque fructuosae. Si essemus lapides, aut fluctus, aut ventus, aut flamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atque vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus. Nam velut amores corporum momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur: ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amore fertur quocunque fertur (de civ. Dei, XI, 28).

Noch verdient bemerkt zu werden, daß schon Euler einsah, das Wesen der Gravitation müsse zuletzt auf eine den Körpern eigenthümliche „Neigung und Begierde“ (also Willen) zurückgeführt werden (im 68. Briefe an die Prinzessin). Sogar macht gerade Dies ihn dem Begriffe der Gravitation, wie er bei Neuton dasteht, abhold, und er ist geneigt, eine Modifikation desselben, gemäß der frühern Kartesianischen Theorie zu versuchen, also die Gravitation aus dem Stoße eines Aethers auf die Körper abzuleiten, als welches „vernünftiger und den Leuten, die helle und begreifliche Grundsätze lieben“, angemessener wäre. Die Attraktion will er als qualitas occulta aus der Physik verbannt sehen. Dies ist eben nur der todten Naturansicht, welche, als Korrelat der immateriellen Seele, zu Eulers Zeit herrschte, gemäß: allein es ist beachtenswerth in Hinsicht auf die von mir aufgestellte Grundwahrheit, welche nämlich schon damals dieser seine Kopf aus der Ferne durchschimmern sehend, bei Zeiten umzukehren sich beeilte und nun, in seiner Angst, alle damaligen Grundansichten gefährdet zu sehen, sogar beim alten, bereits abgethanen Absurden Schutz suchte.

25 Wir wissen, daß die Vielheit überhaupt nothwendig durch Zeit und Raum bedingt und nur in ihnen denkbar ist, welche wir in dieser Hinsicht das principium individuationis nennen. Zeit und Raum aber haben wir als Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde erkannt, in welchem Satz alle unsere Erkenntniß a priori ausgedrückt ist, die aber, wie oben auseinandergesetzt, eben als solche, nur der Erkennbarkeit der Dinge, nicht ihnen selbst zukommt, d. h. nur unsere Erkenntnißform, nicht Eigenschaft des Dinges an sich ist, welches als solches frei ist von aller Form der Erkenntniß, auch von der allgemeinsten, der des Objektseyns für das Subjekt, d. h. etwas von der Vorstellung ganz und gar Verschiedenes ist. Ist nun dieses Ding an sich, wie ich hinlänglich nachgewiesen und einleuchtend gemacht zu haben glaube, der Wille; so liegt er, als solcher und gesondert von seiner Erscheinung betrachtet, außer der Zeit und dem Raum, und kennt demnach keine Vielheit, ist folglich einer; doch, wie schon gesagt, nicht wie ein Individuum, noch wie ein Begriff Eins ist; sondern wie etwas, dem die Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Vielheit, das principium individuationis, fremd ist. Die Vielheit der Dinge in Raum und Zeit, welche sämmtlich seine Objektität sind, trifft daher ihn nicht und er bleibt, ihrer ungeachtet, untheilbar. Nicht ist etwa ein kleinerer Theil von ihm im Stein, ein größerer im Menschen: da das Verhältniß von Theil und Ganzem ausschließlich dem Raume angehört und keinen Sinn mehr hat, sobald man von dieser Anschauungsform abgegangen ist; sondern auch das Mehr und Minder trifft nur die Erscheinung, d. i. die Sichtbarkeit, die Objektivation: von dieser ist ein höherer Grad in der Pflanze, als im Stein; im Thier ein höherer, als in der Pflanze: ja, sein Hervortreten in die Sichtbarkeit, seine Objektivation, hat so unendliche Abstufungen, wie zwischen der schwächsten Dämmerung und dem hellsten Sonnenlicht, dem stärksten Ton und dem leisesten Nachklange sind. Wir werden weiter unten auf die Betrachtung dieser Grade der Sichtbarkeit, die zu seiner Objektivation, zum Abbilde seines Wesens gehören, zurückkommen. Noch weniger aber, als die Abstufungen seiner Objektivation ihn selbst unmittelbar treffen, trifft ihn die Vielheit der Erscheinungen auf diesen verschiedenen Stufen, d. i. die Menge der Individuen jeder Form, oder der einzelnen Aeußerungen jeder Kraft; da diese Vielheit unmittelbar durch Zeit und Raum bedingt ist, in die er selbst nie eingeht.

Er offenbart sich ebenso ganz und ebenso sehr in einer Eiche, wie in Millionen: ihre Zahl, ihre Vervielfältigung in Raum und Zeit hat gar keine Bedeutung in Hinsicht auf ihn, sondern nur in Hinsicht auf die Vielheit der in Raum und Zeit erkennenden und selbst darin vervielfachten und zerstreuten Individuen, deren Vielheit aber selbst wieder auch nur seine Erscheinung, nicht ihn angeht. Daher könnte man auch behaupten, daß wenn, per impossibile, ein einziges Wesen, und wäre es das geringste, gänzlich vernichtet würde, mit ihm die ganze Welt untergehen müßte. Im Gefühl hievon sagt der große Mystiker Angelus Silesius:

„Ich weiß, daß ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nu kann leben: Werd' ich zunicht; er muß von Noth den Geist aufgeben.“

Man hat auf mancherlei Weise versucht, die unermeßliche Größe des Weltgebäudes der Fassungskraft eines Jeden näher zu bringen, und dann Anlaß zu erbaulichen Betrachtungen daher genommen, wie etwan über die relative Kleinheit der Erde und gar des Menschen; dann wieder im Gegensatz hievon, über die Größe des Geistes in diesem so kleinen Menschen, der jene Weltgröße herausbringen, begreifen, ja messen kann, u. dgl. m. Alles gut! Inzwischen ist mir, bei Betrachtung der Unermeßlichkeit der Welt, das Wichtigste Dieses, daß das Wesen an sich, dessen Erscheinung die Welt ist, — was immer es auch seyn möchte, — doch nicht sein wahres Selbst solchergestalt im gränzenlosen Raum auseinandergezogen und zertheilt haben kann, sondern diese unendliche Ausdehnung ganz allein seiner Erscheinung angehört, es selbst hingegen in jeglichem Dinge der Natur, in jedem Lebenden, ganz und ungetheilt gegenwärtig ist; daher eben man nichts verliert, wenn man bei irgend einem Einzelnen stehen bleibt, und auch die wahre Weisheit nicht dadurch zu erlangen ist, daß man die gränzenlose Welt ausmißt, oder, was noch zweckmäßiger wäre, den endlosen Raum persönlich durchflöge; sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß man irgend ein Einzelnes ganz erforscht, indem man das wahre und eigentliche Wesen desselben vollkommen erkennen und verstehen zu lernen sucht.

Demgemäß wird Folgendes, was sich hier jedem Schüler des Platon schon von selbst aufgedrungen hat, im nächsten Buch der Gegenstand einer ausführlichen Betrachtung seyn, nämlich daß jene verschiedenen Stufen der Objeftivation des Willens, welche, in zahllosen Individuen ausgedrückt, als die unerreichten Musterbilder dieser, oder als die ewigen Formen der Dinge dastehen, nicht selbst in Zeit und Raum, das Medium der Jndividuen, eintretend; sondern fest stehend, keinem Wechsel unterworfen, immer seiend, nie geworden; während jene entstehen und vergehen, immer werden und nie sind; daß, sage ich, diese Stufen der Objektivation des Willens nichts Anderes als Platons Ideen sind. Ich erwähne es hier vorläufig, um fortan das Wort Idee in diesem Sinne gebrauchen zu können, welches also bei mir immer in seiner ächten und ursprünglichen, von Platon ihm ertheilten Bedeutung zu verstehen ist und dabei durchaus nicht zu denken an jene abstrakten Produktionen der scholastisch dogmatisirenden Vernunft, zu deren Bezeichnung Kant jenes von Platon shon in Besitz genommene und höchst zweckmäßig gebrauchte Wort, ebenso unpassend, wie unrechtmäßig gemißbraucht hat. Ich verstehe also unter Idee jede bestimmte und feste Stufe der Objektivation des Willens, sofern er Ding an sich und daher der Vielheit fremd ist, welche Stufen zu den einzelnen Dingen sich allerdings verhalten, wie ihre ewigen Formen, oder ihre Musterbilder. Den kürzesten und bündigsten Ausdruck jenes berühmten Platonischen Dogmas giebt uns Diogenes Laertius (III, 12): ὁ Πλατων φησι, εν τῃ φυσει τας ιδεας ἑσταναι, καθαπερ παραδειγματα· τα δ’αλλα ταυταις εοικεναι, τουτων ὁμοιωματα καθεστωτα. (Plato ideas in natura velat exemplaria dixit subsisgtere; cetera his esse similia, ad istarum similitudinem consistentia.) Von jenem Kantischen Mißbrauch nehme ich weiter keine Notiz: das Röthige darüber steht im Anhang.

26 Als die niedrigste Stufe der Objektivation des Willens stellen sich die allgemeinsten Kräfte der Natur dar, welche theils in jeder Materie ohne Ausnahme erscheinen, wie Schwere, Undurchdringlichkeit, theils sich unter einander in die überhaupt vorhandene Materie getheilt haben, so daß einige über diese, andere über jene, eben dadurch specifisch verschiedene Materie herrschen, wie Starrheit, Flüssigkeit, Elafticität, Elektricität, Maynetismus, chemische Eigenschaften und Qualitäten jeder Art. Sie sind an sich unmittelbare Erscheinungen des Willens, so gut wie das Thun des Menschen, sind als solche grundlos, wie der Charakter des Menschen, nur ihre einzelnen Erscheinungen sind dem Satz vom Grund unterworfen, wie die Handlungen des Menschen, sie selbst hingegen könneu niemals weder Wirkung noh Ursache heißen, sondern sind die vorhergegangenen und vorausgesegzten Bedingungen aller Ursachen und Wirkungen, durch welche ihr eigenes Wesen sich entfaltet und offenbart. Es is deshalb unverständig, nach einer Ursache der Schwere, der Elektricität zu fragen: dies sind ursprüngliche Kräfte, deren Aeußerungen zwar nach Ursach und Wirkung vor sich gehen, so daß jede einzelne Erscheinung derselben eine Ursache hat, die selbst wieder eben eine solche einzelne Erscheinung ist und die Bestimmung giebt, daß hier jene Kraft sich äußern, in Zeit und Raum hexvortreten mußte; keineswegs aber ist die Kraft selbst Wirkung einer Ursache, noh auch Ursache einer Wirkung. — Daher ist es auch falsch zu sagen: „die Schwere ist Ursache, daß der Stein fällt“; vielmehr ist die Nähe der Erde hier die Ursache, indem diese den Stein zieht. Nehmt die Erde weg, und der Stein wird nicht fallen, obgleih die Schwere geblieben ist. Die Kraft selbst liegt ganz außerhalb der Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen, welche die Zeit voraussezt, indem sie nur in Bezug auf diese Bedeutung hat: jene aber liegt auch außerhalb der Zeit. Die einzelne Veränderung hat immer wieder eine ebenso einzelne Veränderung, nicht aber die Kraft, zur Ursache, deren Aeußerung sie ist. Denn Das eben, was einer Ursache, so unzählige Male sie eintreten mag, immer die Wirksamkeit verleiht, ist eine Naturkraft, ist als solche grundlos, d. h. liegt ganz außerhalb der Kette der Urfachen und überhaupt des Gebietes des Satzes vom Grunde, und wird philosophisch erkannt als unmittelbare Objeftität des Willens, der das An-sich der gesammten Natur ist; in der Aetiologie, hier Physik, aber nachgewiesen, als ursprüngliche Kraft, d. i. qualitas occulta.

Auf den obern Stufen der Objektität des Willens sehen wir die Individualität bedeutend hervortreten, besonders beim Menschen, als die große Verschiedenheit individueller Charaktere, d. h. als vollständige Persönlichkeit, shon äußerlich ausgedrückt durch stark gezeichnete individuelle Physiognomie, welche die gesammte Korporisation mitbegreift. Diese Individualität hat bei weitem in solchem Grade kein Thier; sondern nur die obern Thiere haben einen Anstrich davon, über den jedoch der Gattungscharafter noch ganz und gar vorherrscht, eben deshalb auch nur wenig Individualphysiognomie. Je weiter abwärts, desto mehr verliert sich jede Spur von Individualcharakter in dem allgemeinen der Species, deren Physiognomie auch allein übrig bleibt. Man kennt den psychologischen Charakter der Gattung, und weiß daraus genau, was vom Judividuo zu erwarten steht; da hingegen in der Menschenspecies jedes Judividuum für sich studirt und ergründet seyn will, was, um mit einiger Sicherheit sein Verfahren zum voraus zu bestimmen, wegen der erst mit der Vernunft eingetretenen Möglichkeit der Verstellung, von der größten Schwierigkeit ist. Wahrscheinlich hängt es mit diesem Unterschiede der Menschengattung von allen anderen zusammen, daß die Furchen und Windungen des Gehirns, welche bei den Vögeln noch ganz fehlen und ‘bei den Nagethieren noch sehr schwach sind, selbst bei den obern Thieren weit symmetrischer an beiden Seiten und konstanter bei jedem Individuo die selben sind, als beim Menschen [15]. Ferner ist es als ein Phänomen jenes den Menschen von allen Thieren unterscheidenden eigentlichen Individualcharakters anzusehen, daß bei den Thieren der Geschlechtstrieb seine Befriedigung ohne merkliche Auswahl sucht, während diese Auswahl beim Menschen, und zwar auf eine von aller Reflexion unabhängige, instinktmäßige Weise, fo hoch getrieben wird, daß sie bis zur gewaltigen Leidenschaft steigt. Während nun also jeder Mensch als eine besonders bestimmte und charakterisirte Erscheinung des Willens, sogar gewissermaaßen als eine eigene Idee anzuschen ist, bei den Thieren aber dieser Judividualcharafter im Ganzen fehlt, indem nur noch die Species eine eigenthümliche Bedeutung hat, und seine Spur immer mehr verschwindet, je weiter sie vom Menschen abstehen, die Pflanzen endlich gar keine andere Eigenthümlichkeiten des Individuums mehr haben, als solche, die sich aus äußern günstigen¹⁶ Wenzel, De structura cerebri hominis et brutorum 1812, Kap. 3. — Cuvier, Leçons d’anat. comp. leçon 9, art. 4 u. 5. — Vicq d'Azyr, Hist. de l’acad. d. sc. de Paris 1783, S. 470 u. 483. oder ungünstigen Einflüssen des Bodens und Klimas und anderen Zufälligkeiten vollkommen erklären lassen; so verschwindet endlich im unorganischen Reiche der Natur gänzlih alle Individualität. Bloß der Krystall ist noch gewissermaaßen als Judividuum anzusehen: er ist eine Einheit des Strebens nach bestimmten Richtungen, von der Erstarrung ergriffen, die dessen Spur bleibend macht: er ist zugleih ein Aggregat aus seiner Kerngestalt, durch eine Idee zur Einheit verbunden, ganz so wie der Baum ein Aggregat ist aus der einzelnen treibenden Faser, die sich in jeder Rippe des Blattes, jedem Blatt, jedem Ast darstellt, wiederholt und gewissermaaßen jedes von diesen als ein eigenes Gewächs ansehen läßt, das sich parasitisch vom größern nährt, so daß der Baum, ähnlih dem Krystall, ein systematishes Aggregat von kleinen Pflanzen ist, wiewohl erst das Ganze die vollendete Darstellung einer untheilbaren Idee, d. i. dieser bestimmten Stufe der Dbjektivation des Willens ist. Die Individuen derselben Gattung von Krystallen können aber keinen andern Unterschied haben, als den äußere Zufälligkeiten herbeiführen: man kann sogar jede Gattung nach Belieben zu großen, oder kleinen Krystallen anschießen machen. Das Individuum aber als solches, d. h. mit Spuren eines individuellen Charakters, findet sich durchaus nicht mehr in der unorganischen Natur. Alle ihre Erscheinungen sind Aeußerungen allgemeiner Naturkräfte, d. h. solcher Stufen der Objektivation des Willens, welche sich durhaus nicht (wie in der organischen Natur) durch die Vermittelung der Verschiedenheit der Individualitäten, die das Ganze der Idee theilweise aussprechen, objeftiviren; sondern sich allein in der Species und diese in jeder einzelnen Erscheinung ganz und ohne alle Abweichung darstellen. Da Zeit, Raum, Vielheit und Bedingtseyn durch Ursache nicht dem Willen, noch der Idee (der Stufe der Objektivation des Willens), sondern nur den einzelnen Erscheinungen dieser angehören; so muß in allen Millionen Erscheinungen einer solchen Naturkraft, z. B. der Schwere, oder der Elektricität, sie als solche sich ganz genau auf gleiche Weise darstellen, und bloß die äußern Umstände können die Erscheinung modificiren. Diese Einheit ihres Wesens in allen ihren Erscheinungen, diese unwandelbare Konstanz des Eintritts derselben, sobald, am Leitfaden der Kaufalität, die Bedingungen dazu vorhanden sind, heißt ein Naturgesetz.

Ist ein solches durch Erfahrung einmal bekannt, so läßt sich die Erscheinung der Naturkraft, deren Charakter in ihm ausgesprochen und niedergelegt ist, genau vorherbestimmen und bereehnen. Diese Gesegmäßigkeit der Erscheinungen der untern Stufen der Objektivation des Willens ist es aber eben, die ihnen ein so verschiedenes Ansehen giebt von den Erscheinungen des selben Willens auf den höheren, d. i. deutlicheren Stufen seiner Objektivation, in Thieren, Menschen und deren Thun, wo das stärkere oder schwächere Hervortreten des individuellen Charakters und das Bewegtwerden durch Motive, welche, weil in der Erkenntniß liegend, dem Zuschauer oft verborgen bleiben, das Identische des innern Wesens beider Arten von Erscheinungen bisher gänzlich hat verkennen lassen.

Die Unfehlbarkeit der Naturgesetze hat, wenn man von der Erkenntniß des Einzelnen, nicht von der der Idee ausgeht, etwas Ueberraschendes, ja, bisweilen fast Schqudererregendes. Man könnte sich wundern, daß die Natur ihre Gesetze auch nicht ein einziges Mal vergißt: daß z. B. wenn es einmal einem Naturgesetz gemäß ist, daß beim Zusammentreffen gewisser Stoffe, unter bestimmten Bedingungen, eine chemishe Verbindung, Gasentwickelung, Verbrennung Statt habe; nun auch, wenn die Bedingungen zusammentreffen, sei es durch unsere Veranstaltung, oder ganz und gar durch Zufall (wo die Pünktlichkeit durch das Unerwartete desto überraschender ist), heute so gut wie vor tausend Jahren, sofort und ohne Aufschub die bestimmte Erscheinung eintritt, Am lebhaftesten empfinden wir dieses Wunderbare bei seltenen, nur unter sehr kombinirten Umständen erfolgenden, unter diesen aber uns vorherverkündeten Erscheinungen: so z. B. daß, wenn gewisse Metalle, unter einander und mit einer gesäuerten Feuchtigkeit abwechselnd, sich berühren, Silberblätthen, zwischen die Extremitäten dieser Verkettung gebracht, plötzlich in grüne Flammen aufgehen müssen: oder daß unter gewissen Bedingungen der harte Diamant sich in Kohlensäure verwandelt. Es ist die geistermäßige Allgegenwart der Naturkräfte, die uns alsdann Überrascht, und was uns bei den alltäglichen Erscheinungen nicht mehr einfällt, bemerken wir hier, nämlich wie zwischen Ursach und Wirkung der Zusammenhang eigentlich so geheimnißvoll ist; wie der, welchen man dichtet zwischen einer Zauberformel und dem Geist, der durch sie herbeigerufen nothwendig erscheint. Hingegen, wenn wir in die philosophische Erkenntniß eingedrungen sind, daß eine Naturkraft eine bestimmte Stufe der Objektivation des Willens ist, d. h. Desjenigen, was auch wir als unser innerstes Wesen erkennen, und daß dieser Wille an sich selbst und unterschieden von seiner Erscheinung und deren Formen, außer der Zeit und dem Raume liegt, und daher die durch diese bedingte Vielheit nicht ihm, noch unmittelbar der Stufe seiner Objektivation, d. i. der Idee, sondern erst den Erscheinungen dieser zukommt, das Gesetz der Kausalität aber nur in Bezichung auf Zeit und Raum Bedeutung hat, indem es nämlich in diesen den vervielfachten Erscheinungen der verschiedenen Ideen, in welchen der Wille sich manifestirt, ihre Stelle bestimmt, die Ordnung regelnd, in der sie eintreten müssen; — wenn uns, sage ich, in dieser Erkenntniß der innere Sinn der großen Lehre Kants aufgegangen ist, daß Raum, Zeit und Kausalität nicht dem Dinge an sich, sondern nur der Erscheinung zukommen, nur Formen unserer Erkenntniß, nicht Beschaffenheiten des Dinges an sich sind; dann werden wir einsehen, daß jenes Erstaunen über die Gesetzmäßigfeit und Pünktlichkeit des Wirkens einer Naturkraft, über die vollkommene Gleichheit aller ihrer Millionen Erscheinungen, über die Unfehlbarkeit des Eintritts derselben, in der That dem Erftaunen eines Kindes, oder eines Wilden zu vergleichen ist, der zum ersten Mal durch ein Glas mit vielen Facetten etwan eine Blume betrachtend, sich wundert über die vollflommene Gleichheit der unzähligen Blumen, die er sieht, und einzeln die Blätter einer jeder derselben zählt.

Jede allgemeine ursprüngliche Naturkraft ist also in ihrem innern Wesen nichts Anderes, als die Objektivation des Willens auf einer niedrigen Stufe: wir nennen eine jede solche Stufe eine ewige Idee, in Platons Sinn. Das Naturgesetz aber ist die Beziehung der Idee auf die Form ihrer Erscheinung. Diese Form ist Zeit, Raum und Kausalität, welche nothwendigen und unzerirennlichen Zusammenhang und Beziehung auf einander haben. Durch Zeit und Raum vervielfältigt sich die Idee in unzählige Erscheinungen: die Ordnung aber, nach welcher diese in jene Formen der Mannigfaltigkeit eintreten, ist fest bestimmt durch das Gesetz der Kausalität: dieses ist gleichsam die Norm der Gränzpunkte jener Erscheinungen verschiedener Ideen, nach welcher Raum, Zeit und Materie an sie vertheilt sind. Diese Norm bezieht sich daher nothwendig auf die Identität der gesammten vorhandenen Materie, welche das gemeinsame Substrat aller jener verschiedenen Erscheinungen ist. Wären diese nicht alle an jene gemeinsame Materie gewiesen, in deren Besitz sie sich zu theilen haben; so bedürfte es nicht eines solchen Gesetzes, ihre Ansprüche zu bestimmen: sie könnten alle zugleich und neben einander den unendlichen Raum, eine unendliche Zeit hindurch, füllen. Nur also weil alle jene Erscheinungen der ewigen Ideen an eine und die selbe Materie gewiesen sind, mußte eine Regel ihres Ein- und Austritts seyn: sonst würde keine der andern Platz machen. Diesergestalt ist das Gesetz der Kausalität wesentlich verbunden mit dem der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz: beide erhalten bloß von einander wechselseitig Bedeutung: ebenso aber auch wieder verhalten sich zu ihnen Raum und Zeit. Denn die bloße Möglichkeit entgegengesetzter Bestimmungen an der selben Materie ist die Zeit: die bloße Möglichkeit des Beharrens der selben Materie unter allen entgegengesetzten Bestimmungen ist der Raum. Darum erklärten wir im vorigen Buche die Materie als die Vereinigung von Zeit und Raum; welche Vereinigung sich zeigt als Wechsel der Accidenzien beim Beharren der Substanz, wovon die allgemeine Möglichkeit eben die Kausalität, oder das Werden ist. Wir sagten daher auch, die Materie sei durch und durch Kausalität. Wir erklärten den Verstand als das fubjektive Korrelat der Kausalität, und sagten, die Materie (also die gesammte Welt als Vorstellung) sei nur für den Verstand da, er sei ihre Bedingung, ihr Träger, als ihr nothwendiges Korrelat. Dieses alles hier nur zur beiläufigen Erinnerung an Das, was im ersten Buche ausgeführt ist. Die Beachtung der innern Uebereinstimmung beider Bücher wird zu ihrem völligen Verständniß erfordert: da, was in der wirklichen Welt unzertrennlich vereint ist, als ihre zwei Seiten, Wille und Vorstellung, durch diese zwei Bücher aus einander gerissen worden, um jedes isolirt desto deutlicher zu erkennen.

Es möchte vielleicht nicht überflüssig seyn, durch ein Beispiel noch deutlicher zu machen, wie das Gese der Kausalität nur in Beziehung auf Zeit und Raum und die, in der Vereinigung beider bestehende, Materie Bedeutung hat; indem es die Gränzen bestimmt, welchen gemäß die Erscheinungen der Naturkräfte sich in den Besitz jener theilen, während die ursprünglichen Naturkräfte selbst, als unmittelbare Objektivationen des Willens, der als Ding an sich dem Satz vom Grunde nicht unterworfen ist, außerhalb jener Formen liegen, innerhalb welcher allein jede ätiologische Erklärung Gültigkeit und Bedeutung hat und eben deshalb nie zum innern Wesen der Natur führen kann. — Denken wir uns, zu diesem Zweck, etwan eine nach Gesetzen der Mechanik konstruirte Maschine. Eiserne Gewichte geben durch ihre Schwere den Anfang der Bewegung; kupferne Räder widerstehen durch ihre Starrheit, stoßen und heben einander und die Hebel vermöge ihrer Undurchdringlichkeit u. s. f. Hier sind Schwere, Starrheit, Undurchdringlichkeit ursprüngliche, unerklärte Kräfte: bloß die Bedingungen unter denen, und die Art und Weise, wie sie sich äußern, hervortreten, bestimmte Materie, Zeit. und Ort beherrschen, giebt die Mechanik an. Es kann jetzt etwan ein starker Magnet auf das Eisen der Gewichte wirken, die Schwere überwältigen: die Bewegung der Maschine stockt und die Materie ist sofort der Schauplatz einer ganz andern Naturkraft, von der die ätiologische Erklärung ebenfalls nichts weiter, als die Bedingungen ihres Eintritts angiebt, des Magnetismus. Oder aber es werden nunmehr die kupfernen Scheiben jener Maschine auf Zinkplatten ge legt, gesäuerte Feuchtigkeit dazwischen geleitet: sogleich ist die selbe Materie der Maschine einer andern ursprünglichen Kraft, dem Galvanismus anheimgefallen, der nun nach seinen Gesegen sie. beherrscht, durch seine Erscheinungen an ihr sich offenbart, von welchen die Aetiologie auch nicht mehr, als die Umstände, unter denen, und die Gesetze, nach welchen sie sich zeigen, angeben kann. Jetzt lassen wir die Temperatur wachsen, reinen Sauerstoff, hinzutreten: die ganze Maschine verbrennt: d. h. abermals hat eine gänzlich verschiedene Naturkraft, der Chemismus, zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort, unweigerlihen Auspruch an jene Materie, und offenbart sich an ihr als Idee, als bestimmte Stufe der Objektivation des Willens. — Der dadurch entstandene Metallkalk verbinde sich nun mit einer Säure: ein Salz entsteht, Krystalle schießen an: sie sind die Erscheinung einer andern Idee, die selbst wieder ganz unergründlich ist, während der Eintritt ihrer Erscheinung von jenen Bedingungen abhing, welche die Aetiologie anzugeben weiß. Die Krystalle verwittern, vermischen sich mit anderen Stoffen, eine Vegetation erhebt sich aus ihiien: eine neue Willenserscheinung: — und so ließe sich ins Unendliche die nämliche beharrende Materie verfolgen, und zusehen, wie bald diese, bald jene Naturkraft ein Recht auf sie gewinnt und es unausbleiblich ergreist, um hervorzutreten und ihr Wesen zu offenbären. Die Bestimmung dieses Rechts, den Punkt in der Zeit und dem Raume, wo es gültig wird, giebt das Gesetz der Kausalität an; aber auch nur bis dahin geht die auf dasselbe gegründete Erklärung. Die Kraft selbst ist Erscheinung des Willens und als solche nicht den Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde unterworfen, d. h. grundlos. Sie liegt außer aller Zeit, ist allgegenwärtig und scheint gleichsam beständig auf den Eintritt der Umstände zu harren, unter denen sie hervortreten und sich ener bestimmten Materie, mit Verdrängung der bis dahin diéfe beherrschenden Kräfte, bemächtigen kann. Alle Zeit ist nur für ihre Erscheinung da, ihr selbst ohne Bedeutung: Jahrtausende schlummern die chemischen Kräfte in einer Materie, bis die Berührung der Reagenzien sie frei macht: dann erscheinen sie: aber die Zeit ist nur für diese Erschemung, nicht für die Kräfte selbst da. Jahrtaufende schlummert der Galvanismus im Kupfer und Zink, und sie liegen ruhig neben dem Silber, welches,, sobald alle drei, unter den erforderten Bedingungen sich berühren, in Flammen aufgehen muß. Selbst im organischen Reiche fehèn wir ein trockenes Saamenkorn, dreitausend Jahre lang die shlummernde Kraft bewahren, welche, beim endlichen Eintritt der 'günftigen Umstände, als Pflanze emporsteigt [17].

18 Am 16. Sept. 1840 zeigte, im litterarischen und wissenschaftlichen Institut der Londoner City, Herr Pettigrew, bei einer Vorlesung über Aegyptische Alterthümer, Weizenkörner vor, die Sir G. Wilkinson in einem Grabe bei Theben gefunden hatte, woselbst solche dreißig Jahrhunderte gelegen haben müssen. Sie wurden in einer hermetisch versiegelten Vase gofunden. Zwölf Körner hatte er gesäet und “daraus eine Pflanze erhalten, welhe fünf Fuß hoh gewachsen und deren Saamen jet vollklommen reif war. Aus den Times, v. 21. Sept. 1840. — Desgleichen producirte in der medicinisch- “botanischen Gesellschaft zu London, im Jahr 1830, Herr Haulton tine fnollige Wurzel, welche sich in der Hand riner Aegyptischen Mumie gefunden Ist uns nun durch diese Betrachtung der Unterschied deutlich geworden zwischen der Naturkraft und allen ihren Erscheinungen; haben wir eingesehen, daß jene der Wille selbst auf dieser bestimmten Stufe seiner Objektivation ist; den Erscheinungen allein aber, durch Zeit und Raum, Vielheit zukommt, und das Gesetz der Kausalität nichts Anderes, als die Bestimmung der Stelle in Jenen für die einzelnen Erscheinungen ist; dann werden wir auch die vollkommene Wahrheit und den tiefen Sinn der Lehre des Mallebranche von den gelegentlichen Ursachen, causes occasionelles, erkennen. Es ist sehr der Mühe werth, diese seine Lehre, wie er sie in den Recherches de la vérité, zumal im dritten Kapitel des zweiten Theils des sechsten Buchs und in den hinten angehängten éclaircissements zu diesem Kapitel, vorträgt, mit meiner gegenwärtigen Darstellung zu vergleichen und die vollkfommenste Uebereinstimmung beider Lehren, bei so großer Verschiedenheit des Gedankengauges, wahrzunehmen. Ja, ich muß es bewundern, wie Mallebranche, gänzlich befangen in den positiven Dogmen, welche ihm sein Zeitalter unwiderstehlich aufzwang, dennoch, in solchen Banden, unter solcher Last, so glücklich, so richtig die Wahrheit traf und sie mit eben jenen Dogmen, wenigstens mit der Sprache derselben, zu vereinigen wußte.

Denn die Gewalt der Wahrheit ist unglaublich groß und von unsägliher Ausdauer. Wir finden ihre häufigen Spuren wieder in allen, selbst den bizarrsten, ja, absurdesten Dogmen verhatte, der sie aus einer religidsen Nücksicht mochte, beigegeben seyn, und die mithin weuigstens 2000 Jahre alt war. Er hatte sie in einen Blumentopf gepflanzt, wo sie sogleich gewachsen war und grünte. Dieses wird aus dem Medical Journal von 1830 angeführt im Journal of thé Royal Tnstitution of Great-Britain, Oktober 1830, S. 196. — „Im Garten des Herrn Grimstone, vom Herbarium, Highgate, in Loudon, steht jetzt eine Erbfenpflanze in, voller Frucht, welche hervorgegangen ist, aus einer Erbse, die Herr Pettigrew und die Beamten des Brittishen Museums einer Vase entnommen haben, welche sich in einem Aegyptischen Sarkophage vorgefunden hatte, woselbst sie 2844 Jahre gelegen haben muß.“ — Aus den Times v. 16. August 1844. — Ja, die in Kalkstein gefundenen, lebendigen Kröten führen zu der Annahme, daß selbst das thierische Leben einer solchen Suspension auf Jahrtausende fähig ist, wenn diese durh den Winterfchlaf eingeleitet und durch besondere Umstände erhalten wird. schiedener Zeiten und Länder, zwar oft in sonderbarer Gesellschaft, in wunderlicher Vermischung, aber doch zu erkennen. Sie gleicht sodann einer Pflanze, welche unter einem Haufen großer Steine keimt, aber dennoch zum Lichte heranklimmt, sich durcharbeitend, mit vielen Umwegen und Krümmungen, verunstaltet, verbläßt, verkümmert; — aber dennoch zum Lichte.

Allerdings hat Mallebranche Recht: jede natürliche Ursache ist nur Gelegenheitsursache, giebt nur Gelegenheit, Anlaß zur Erscheinung jenes einen und untheilbaren Willens, der das Ansich aller Dinge ist und dessen stufenweise Objektivirung diese ganze sichtbare Welt. Nur das Hervortreten, das Sichtbarwerden an diesem Ort, zu dieser Zeit, wird durch die Ursache herbeigefährt und ist insofern von ihr abhängig, nicht aber das Ganze der Erscheinung, nicht ihr inneres Wesen: dieses ist der Wille selbst, auf den der Satz vom Grunde keine Anwendung findet, der mithin grundlos ist. Kein Ding in der Welt hat eine Ursache seiner Existenz schlechthin und überhaupt; sondern nur eine Ursache, aus der es gerade hier und gerade jetzt da ist. Warum ein Stein jetzt Schwere, jetzt Starrheit, jetzt Elektricität, jetzt chemische Eigenschaften zeigt, das hängt von Ursachen, von äußern -Einwirkungen ab und ist aus diesen zu erklären: jene Eigenschaften selbst aber, also sein ganzes Wesen, welches aus ihnen besteht, und folglich sich auf alle jene angegebenen Weisen äußert, daß er also überhaupt ein solcher ist, wie er ist, daß er überhaupt existirt, das hat keinen Grund, sondern ist die Sichtbarwerdung des grundlosen Willens. Also alle Ursache ist Gelegenheitsursache. So haben wir es gefunden in der erkenntnißlosen Natur: gerade so aber ist es auch da, wo nicht mehr Ursachen und Reize, sondern Motive es sind, die den Eintrittspunkt der Erscheinungen bestimmen, also im Handeln der Thiere und Meuschen. Denn hier wie dort ist es ein und derselbe Wille, welcher erscheint, in den Graden seiner Manifestation höchst verschieden, in den Erscheinungen dieser vervielfacht und in Hinficht auf diese dem Sag vom Grunde unterworfen, an sich frei von dem allen, Die Motive bestimmen nicht den Charakter des Menschen, sondern nur die Erscheinung dieses Charafters, also die Thaten; die äußere Gestalt seines Lebenslaufs, nicht dessen innere Bedeutung und Gehalt: diese gehen hervor aus dem Charakter, der die unmittelbare Erscheinung des Willens, also grundlos ist. Warum der Eine boshaft, der Andere gut ist, hängt nicht von Motiven und äußerer Einwirkung, etwan von Lehren und Predigten ab, und ist schlehthin in diesem Sinne unerklärlih. Aber ob ein Böser seine Bosheit zeigt in kleinlichen Ungerechtigkeiten, feigen Ränken, niedrigen Schurkereien, die er im engen Kreise seiner Umgebungen ausübt, oder ob er als ein Eroberer Völker unterdrückt, eine Welt in Jammer stürzt, das Blut von Millionen vergießt: dies ist die äußere Form seiner Erscheinung, das Unwesentliche derselben, und hängt ab von den Umständen, in die ihn das Schicksal setzte, von den Umgebungen, von den äußern Einflüssen, von den Motiven; aber nie ist seine Entscheidung auf diese Motive aus ihnen erklärlich: sie geht hervor aus dem Willen, dessen Erscheinung dieser Mensch ist. Davon im vierten Buch. Die Art und Weise, wie der Charakter seine Eigenschaften entfaltet, ist ganz der zu vergleichen, wie jeder Körper der erkenntnißlosen Natur die feinigen zeigt. Das Wasser bleibt Wasser, mit seinen ihm inwohnenden Eigenschaften; ob es aber als stiller See seine Ufer spiegelt, oder ob es schäumend über Felsen stürzt, oder, künstlich veranlaßt, als langer Strahl in die Höhe spritzt: das hängt von den äußern Ursachen ab: Eines ist ihm so natürlich wie das Andere; aber je nachdem die Umstände sind, wird es das Eine oder Andere zeigen, zu Allem gleich sehr bereit, in jedem Fall jedoch seinem Charafter getreu und immer nur diesen ofenbarend. So wird sich auch jeder menschliche Charakter unter allen Umständen offenbaten: aber die Erscheinungen, die daraus hervorgehen, werden seyn, je nachdem die Umstände waren.

27 Wenn es nun aus allen vorhergehenden Betrachtungen über die Kräfte der Natur und die Erscheinungen derselben uns deutlich geworden ist, wie weit die Erklärung aus Ursachen gehen kann und wo sie aufhören muß, wenn sie nicht in das thörihte Bestreben verfallen will, den Inhalt aller Erscheinungen auf ihre bloße Form zurücfzuführen, wo denn am Ende nichts als Form übrig bliebe; so werden wir nunmehr auch im Allgemeinen bestimmen können, was von aller Aetiologie zu fordern ist. Sie hat zu allen Erscheinungen in der Natur die Ursachen aufzusuchen, d. h. die Umstände, unter denen sie allezeit eintreten: dann aber hat sie die unter mannigfaltigen Umständen vielgestalteten Erscheinungen zurückzuführen auf Das, was in aller Erscheinung wirkt und bei der Ursach vorausgesetzt wird, auf ursprüngliche Kräfte der Natur, richtig unterscheidend ob eine Verschiedenhett der Erscheinung von einer Verschiedenheit der Kraft, oder nur von Verschiedenheit der Umstände, unter denen die Kraft sich äußert, herrührt, und gleich sehr sich hütend, für Erscheinung verschiedener Kräfte zu halten, was Aeußerung einer und derselben Kraft, bloß unter verschiedenen Umständen, ist, àls ugekehrt, für Aeußerungen Einer Kraft zu halten, was ursprünglich verschiedenéèn Kräften angehört. Hiezu gehört nun unmittelbar Urtheilskraft; daher so wenige Menschen fähig sind, in der Physik die Einsicht, alle aber die Erfahrung zu erweitern. Trägheit und Unwissenheit machen geneigt, sich zu früh auf ursprünglihe Kräfte zu berufen: dies zeigt sich mit einer der Jronie gleichenden Uebertreibung in den Entitäten und Quiddltäten ber Scholastiker. Ich wünsche nichts weniger, als die Wiedereinfährung derfelben begünstigt zu haben. Man darf, statt eine physikalische Erklärung zu geben, sich so wenig auf die Objektivation des Willens berufen, als auf die Schöpferkraft Gottes. Denn die Physik verlangt Ursachen: der Wille aber ist nie Ursache: sein Verhältniß zur Erscheinung ist durchaus nicht nach dem Satz vom Grunde; sondern was an sich Wille ist, is andererseits áls Vorstellung da, d. h. ist Erscheinung: als solche befolgt es die Gesetze, welche die Form der Erscheinung ausmachen: dà — muß z. B. jede Bewegung, obwohl sie allemal Willenserscheinung ist, dennoch eine Ursache haben, aus der sie in Beziehung auf bestimmte Zeit und Ort, d. h. nicht im Allgemeinen, ihrem innern Wesen nach, sondern als einzelne Erscheinung zu erklären ist. Diese Ursache ist eine mechanische beim Stein, ist eín Motiv bei der Béwegung des Menschen: aber fehlen kann sie nie. Hingegen das Allgemeine, das gemeinsame Wesen aller Erscheiüungen einer bestimniten Art, Das, ohne dessen Voraussetzung die Erklärung aus der Ursache weder Sinn noch Beveutung hätte, das ist die allgemeine Naturkraft, die in der Physik als qualitas occulta stehen blefben muß, eben well hier die ätlologisché Erklärung zu Ende ist und die metaphysische anfängt. Die Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen wird aber nie durch eine ursprüngliche Kraft, auf die man sich zu berufen hätte, abgebrochen, läuft nicht etwan auf diese, als aus ihr erstes Glied zurück; sondexn das nächste Glied der Kette, so gut als das entfernteste, setzt schon die ursprüngliche Kraft voraus, und könnte sonst nichts erklären, Eine Reihe von Ursachen und Wirkungen kann die Erscheinung der verschiedenartigsten Kräfte seyn, deren successiver Eintritt in die Sichtbarkeit durch sie geleitet wird, wie ich es oben, am Beispiel einer metallenen Maschine erläutert habe: aber die Verschiedenheit dieser ursprünglichen, nicht aus einander abzuleitenden Kräfte unterbricht keineswegs die Einheit jener Kette von Ursachen und den Zusammenhang zwischen allen ihren Gliedern. Die Aetiologie der Natur und die Philosophie der Natur thun einander nie Abbruch; sondern gehen neben einauder, den selben Gegenstand aus verschiedeuem Gefichtspunkte betrachtend. Die Aetiologie giebt Rechenschaft von. den Ursachen, welche die einzelne zu erflärende Erscheinung nothwendig herbeiführten, und zeigt, als die Grundlage aller ihrer Erklärungen, die allgemeinen Kräfte auf, welche in allen diesen Ursachen und Wirkungen thätig sind, bestimmt diese Kräfte genau, ihre Zahl, ihre Unterschiede, und dann alle Wirkungen, in denen jede Kraft, nach Maaßgabe der Verschiedenheit der Umstände, verschieden hervortritt, immer ihrem eigenthümlichen Charasier gemäß, den sie nach iner unfehlbaren Regel entfaltet, welche ein Naturgesetz heißt. Sohgld die Physik dies Alles in jeder Hinsicht vollständig geleistet haben wird, hat sie ihre Vollendung erreicht: dann ist keine Kraft in der unorganischen Natur mehr unbekannt und. keine Wirkung mehr da, welche nicht als Erscheinung einer jener Kräfte, unter, bestimmten Umständen, gemäß einem Naturgesetze, nachgewiesen wäre. Dennoch bleibt ein Naturgesetz bloß die der Natur abgemerkte Regel, nach der sie, unter bestimmten Umständen, sabald diese eintreten, jedes Mal verfährt: daher kann man allerdiugs das Naturgesetz definiren als eine allgemein ausgesprochene Thatsache, un fait généralisé; wonach denn eine vollständige Darlegung aller Naturgesetze doh nur ein kompletes Thatsachenregister wäre. — Die Betrachtung der gesammten Natur wird fodaun durch die Morphologie vollendet, welche alle bleibenden Gestalten der organischen Natur aufzählt, vergleicht und ordnet: über die Ursache des Eintritts der einzelnen Wesen hat sie wenig zu sagen, da solche bei allen die Zeugung ist, deren Theorie für sich geht, und in seltenen Fällen die generatiò aequivoca. Zu dieser letztern gehört aber, streng genommen, auch die Art, wie alle niedrigen Stufen der Objektität des Willers, also die physischen und chemischen Erscheinungen, im Einzelnen hervortreten, und die Angabe der Bedingungen zu diesem Hervortreten ist eben jene Aufgabe der Aetiologie. Die Philosophie hingegen betrachtet überall, also auch in der Natur, nur das Allgemeine: die ursprünglichen Kräfte selbst sind hier ihr Gegenstand, und sie erkennt in ihnen die verschiedenen Stufen der Objektivation des Willens, der das innere Wesen, das An-sich dieser Welt ist, welche sie, wenn sie von jenem absieht, für die bloße Vorstellung des Subjekts erklärt. — Wenn nun aber die 'Aetiologiè, statt der Philofophie vorzuarbeiten und ihren Lehren Anwerbung durch Belege: zu liefern, vielmehr meint, es sei ihr Ziel, alle ursprünglichen Kräfte wegzuleugnen, bis etwan auf eine, bie allgemeinste, z. B. Undurchdringlichkeit, welche sie von Grund aus zu verstehen sich einbildet und demnach auf sie alle anderèn gewaltsam zurüczuführen sucht; so entzieht sie sich ihre eigene Grundlage, und kann nur Irrthum statt Wahrheit geben. Der Géhalt der Natur wird jetzt durch die Form verdrängt, den einwirkenden Umständen wird Alles, dem innern Wesen der Dinge nichts zugeschrieben. Gelänge es wirklich auf dem Wege, ‘fo würde, wie schon gesagt, zuletzt ein Rehnungserempel das Räthsel der Welk lösen. Diesen Weg aber geht man, wenn, wie schon etwähnt, alle phyfiologishe Wirkung auf Form und Mischung,: asso etwan auf Elektricität, diese wieder auf Chemismus, dieser aber auf Mechanismnus zurückgeführt werden soll. Letzteres war z. B. der Fehler des Cartesius und aller Atomistiker, welche die Bewegung der Weltkörper auf den Stoß eines Fluidums, und die Qualitäten auf den Zusammenhang und die Gestalt dér Atöme zurückführten und dahin arbeiteten, alle Erscheinungen der Natur für bloße Phänóméene der Undurchdringlihkeit und':Kohäsion zu erklären. Obgleich nan davon zurückgekommen ist, so thun doch auch dasselbe in nnsern Tagen die elektrischen, chemischen und mechanischen Physiologen, welche hartnäckig das ganze Leben uind alle Funktionen des Organismus aus der „Form und Mischung“ seiner Bestandtheile erklären wollen. Daß das Ziel der physiologischen Erklärung die Zurückführung des organischen Lebens auf die allgemeinen Kräfte, welche die Physik betrachtet, sei, findet man ‘noch ausgesprochen in Meckels Archiv für Physiologie, 1820, Bd. 5, S. 185. — Auch Lamarck, in seiner Philosophie zoologique, Bd. 2, Kap. 3, erklärt das Leben für eine bloße Wirkung der Wärme und Elektricität: le calorique et la matière électrique suffisent parfaitement pour composer ensemble cette cause essentielle de la vie (S. 16). Danach wären eigentlich Wärme und Elektricität das Ding an sich und die Thier- und Pflanzenwelt dessen Erscheinung. Das Absurde dieser Meinung tritt S. 306 ff. jenes Werkes grell hervor. Es ist allbekannt, daß in neuester Zeit alle jene so oft erplodirten Ansich- — ten mit erneuerter Dreistigkeit wieder ausgetreten sind. Ihnen liegt, wenn man es genau betrachtet, zuletzt die Voraussetzung zum Grunde, daß der Organismus nur ein Aggregat von Erscheinungen physischer, chemischer und mechanischer Kräfte sei, die hier, zufällig zusammengekommen, den Organismus zu Stande brächten, als ein Naturspiel ohne weitere Bedeutung. Der Organismus eines Thieres, oder des Menschen, wäre demnach, philosophisch betrachtet, nicht Darstellung einer eigenen Idee, d. h. nicht selbst unmittelbar Objektität des Willens, auf einer bestimmten höhern Stufe; sondern in ihm erschienen nur jene Ideen, welche in der Elektricität, im Chemismus, im Mechanismus den Willen objektiviren: der Organismus wäre daher aus dem Zusammentreffen dieser Kräfte so zufällig zusammengeblasen, wie die Gestalten von Menschen und Thieren aus Wolken oder Stalaktiten, daher an sich weiter nicht interessant. — Wir werden indessen sogleich sehen, inwiefern dennochh jene Anwendung physischer und chemischer Erklärungsarten auf den Organismus innerhalb gewisser Gränzen gestattet und brauchbar seyn möchte; indem ich darlegen werde, daß die Lebenskraft die Kräfte der unorganischen Natur allerdings benutzt und gebraucht, jedoch keineswegs aus ihnen besteht; so wenig wie der Schmid aus Hammer und Amboß. Daher wird nie auch nur das so höchst einfache Pflanzenleben aus ihnen, etwan aus der Haarröhrchenkraft und der Endosmose, erklärt werden können, geschweige das thierische Leben.

Folgende Betrachtung bahnt uns den Weg zu jener ziemlich schwierigen Erörterung.

Es ist zwar, allem Gesagten zufolge, eine Verirruug der Naturwissenschaft, wenn sie die höheren Stufen der Objektität des Willens zurückführen will auf niedere; da das Verkennen und Leugnen ursprünglicher und für sich bestehender Naturkräfte eben so fehlerhaft ist, wie die grundlose Annahme eigenthümlicher Kräfte, wo bloß eine besondere Erscheinungsart schon bekannter Statt findet. Mit Recht sagt daher Kant, es sei nugereimt, auf einen Neuton des Grashalms zu hoffen, d. h. auf Denjenigen, der den Grashalm zurückführte auf Erscheinungen physischer und chemischer Kräfte, deren zufälliges Konkrement, also ein bloßes Naturspiel, er mithin wäre, in welchem keine eigenthümliche Idee erschiene, d. h. der Wille sich nicht auf einer höhern und besondern Stufe unmittelbar offenbarte; sondern eben nur so, wie in den Erscheinungen der unorganischen Natur, und zufällig in dieser Form, Die Scholastiker, welche Dergleichen keineswegs verstattet hätten, würden ganz recht gesagt haben, es wäre ein gänzliches Wegleugnen der forma substantialis und ein Herabwürdigen derselben zur forma accidentalis. Denn des Aristoteles forma substantialis bezeichnet genau Das, was ich den Grad der Objektivation des Willens in einem Dinge nenne. — Andererseits nun aber ist nicht zu übersehen, daß in allen Ideen, d, h. in allen Kräften der unorganischen und allen Gestalten der organischen Natur, einer und derselbe Wille es ist, der ih offenbart, d. h. in die Form der Vorstellung, in die Objektität, eingeht. Seine Einheit muß sih daher auch durch eine innere Verwandtschaft zwischen allen seinen Erscheinungen zu erkennen geben. Diese nun offenbart sich auf den höheren Stufen seiner Objektität, wo die ganze Erscheinung deutlicher ist; also im Pflanzen- und Thierreich, durch die allgemein durchgreifende Analogie aller Formen, den Grundtypus, der in allen Erscheinungen sich wiederfindet: dieser ist deshalb das leitende Princip der vortrefflichen, in diesem Jahrhundert von den Frauzosen ausgegangenen, zoologischen Systeme geworden und wird am vollständigsten in der vergleichenden Anatomie nachgewiesen, als l’unité de plan, l’uniformité de l’élément anatomique. Ihn aufzufinden ist auch sein Hauptgeschäft, oder doch: gewiß die löblichste Bestrebung der Naturphilosophen der Schellingischen Schule gewesen, welche sogar darin manches Verdienst haben; wenn gleih in vielen Fälfen ihre Jagd nach Analogien in der Natur zur bloßen Witzelei ausartet. Mit Recht aber haben sie jene allgemeine Verwandtschaft und Familienähnlichkeit auch in den Ideen der unorganischen Natur nachgewiesen, z: B. zwischen Elektricität und Magnetismus, deren Identität später konstatirt wurde, zwischen chemischer Anziehung und Schivere u. dgl. m. Sie haben besonders darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß die Polarität, d. h. das Auseinandertreten einer Kraft in zwei qualitativ verschiedene, entgegengesetzte und zur Wiedervereinigung strebende Thätigkeiten, welches sich meistens an räumlich durch ein Auseinandetgehen in entgegengesetzte Richtigen offenbart, ein Grundtypus fast aller Erscheinungen der Natur, vom Magnet und Krystall bis zum Menschen ist. In China ist jedoch diese Erkenintniß seit den ältesten Zeiten gangbar, in der Lehre vom Gegensaß des Yin und Yang. — Ja, weil eben alle Dinge der Welt die Objektität des einen und selben Willens, folglich dem innern Wesen nach identisch sind; so muß nicht nur jene unverkennbare Analogie zwischen ihnen seyn und in jedem Unvollkommeneren sich schon die Spur, Andeutung, Anlage des zunächst liegenden Vollkommeneren zeigen; sondern auch, weil alle jene Formen doch nur der Welt als Vorstellung angehören, so läßt sich sogar annehmen; daß schon in den allgemeinsten Formen der Vorstellung, in diesem eigentlichen Grundgerüst der erscheinenden Welt, also in Rätm ‘und Zelt, der Grundtypus, die Andeutung, Anlage alles Dessen, was die Formen füllt, aufzufinden und nachzuweisen sei. Es scheint eine dunkle Erkenntniß hievon gewesen zu seyn, welhe der Kabbala und aller mathematischen Philosophie der Pythagoreer, auch der Chinesen, im Y-king, den Ursprung gab: und auch in jener Schellingischen Schule finden wir, bei ihren mannigfaltigen Bestrebungen die Analogie zwischen allen Erscheinungen der Natur an das Licht zu ziehen, auch manche, wiewohl unglückliche Verfué, ‘àâus den bloßen Gesetzen des Raumes und der Zeit Naturgesetze abzuleiten. Indessen kann man nicht wissen, wie weit einmal ein genialer' Kopf beide Bestrebungen realisiren wird.

Wenn nun gleih der Unterschied zwischen Erseheinung und Ding an sich nie aus den Augen zu lassen ist, und daher die Identität des in allen Ideen objektivirten Willens nie (weil er bestimmte Stufen seiner Objektität hat) verdreht werden darf zu einer Identität der einzelnen Ideen selbst, in denen er erscheint, und daher z. B. nimmermehr die chemische, oder elektrische Anziehung zurückgeführt werden darf auf die Anziehung durch Schwere, wenn gleich ihre innere Analogie erkannt wird und die ersteren gleichsam als höhere Potenzen dieser letzteren angesehen werden können; ebenso wenig, als die innere Analogie des Baues aller Thiere berechtigt, die Arten zu vermischen und zu identifiziren und etwan die vollkommeneren für Spielarten der unvollkommeneren zu erklären; wenn also endlich auch die physiologischen Funktionen nie auf chemische oder physische Prozesse zurückzuführen sind, so kann man doch, zur Rechtfertigung dieses Verfahrens innerhalb gewisser Schranken, Folgendes mit vieler Wahrscheinlichkeit annehmen.

Wenn von den Erscheinungen des Willens, auf den niedrigeren Stufen seiner Objektivation, also im Unorganischen, mehrere unter einander in Konflikt gerathen, indem jede, am Leitfaden der Kausalität, sich der vorhandenen Materie bemächtigen will; so geht aus diesem Streit die Erscheinung einer höhern Idee hervor, welche die vorhin dagewesenen unvollkommeneren alle überwältigt, jedoch so, daß sie das Wesen derselben auf eine untergeordnete Weise bestehen läßt, indem sie ein Analogon davon in sich aufnimmt; welcher Vorgang eben nur aus der Identität des erscheinenden Willens in allen Ideen und aus seinem Streben zu immer höherer Objektivation begreiflich ist. Wir sehen daher z. B. im Festwerden der Knochen ein unverkennbares Analogon der Krystallisation, als welche ursprünglich den Kalk beherrschte, obgleich die Ossifikation nie auf Krystallisation zurückzuführen ist. Schwächer zeigt sich die Analogie im Festwerden des Fleisches. So auch ist die Mischung der Säfte im thierischen Körper und die Sekretion ein Analogon der chemischen Mischung und Abscheidung, sogar wirken die Gesetze dieser dabei noch fort, aber untergeordnet, sehr modifizirt, von einer höhern Idee überwältigt; daher bloß chemische Kräfte, außerhalb des Organismus, nie solche Säfte liefern werden; sondern Encheiresin naturae nennt es die Chemie, Spottet ihrer selbst und weiß nicht wie.

Die aus solchem Siege über mehrere niedere Ideen, oder Objektivationen des Willens, hervorgehende vollkommenere gewinnt, eben dadurch, daß sie von jeder überwältigten, ein höher potenzirtes Analogon in sich aufnimmt, einen ganz neuen Charakter: der Wille objektivirt sich auf eine neue deutlichere Art: es entsteht, ursprünglich durch generatio aequivoca, nachher durch Assimilation an den vorhandenen Keim, organischer Saft, Pflanze, Thier, Mensch. Also aus dem Streit niedrigerer Erscheinungen geht die höhere, sie alle verschlingende, aber auch das Streben aller in höherm Grade verwirklichende hervor. — Es herrscht demnach schon hier das Gesetz: serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.

Ich wollte, daß es mir möglich gewesen wäre, durch die Klarheit der Darstellung, die dem Stoffe anhängende Dunkelheit dieser Gedanken zu überwinden: allein ich sehe gar wohl, daß die eigene Betrachtung des Lesers mir sehr zu Hülfe kommen muß, wenn ich nicht unverstanden bleiben, oder mißverstanden werden soll. — Der gegebenen Ansicht gemäß, wird man zwar im Organismus die Spuren chemischer und physischer Wirkungsarten nachweisen, aber nie ihn aus diesen erklären können; weil er keineswegs ein durch das vereinigte Wirken solcher Kräfte, also zufällig hervorgebrachtes Phänomen ist, sondern eine höhere Idee, welche sich jene niedrigeren durch überwältigende Assimilation unterworfen hat; weil der in allen Ideen sich objektivirende eine Wille, indem er zur höchstmöglichen Objektivation strebt, hier die niedern Stufen seiner Erscheinung, nach einem Konflikt derselben, aufgiebt, um auf einer höhern desto mächtiger zu erscheinen. Kein Sieg ohne Kampf: indem die höhere Idee, oder Willensobjektivation, nur durch Ueberwältigung der niedrigeren hervortreten kann, erleidet sie den Widerstand dieser, welche, wenn gleich zur Dienstbarkeit gebracht, doch immer noch streben, zur unabhängigen und vollständigen Aeußerung ihres Wesens zu gelangen. Wie der Magnet, der ein Eisen gehoben hat, einen fortdauernden Kampf mit der Schwere unterhält, welche, als die niedrigste Objektivation des Willens, ein ursprünglicheres Recht auf die Materie jenes Eisens hat, in welchem steten Kampf der Magnet sich sogar stärkt, indem der Widerstand ihn gleichsam zu größerer Anstrengung reizt; ebenso unterhält jede und auch die Willenserscheinung, welche sich im menschlichen Organismus darstellt, einen dauernden Kampf gegen die vielen physischen und chemischen Kräfte, welche, als niedrigere Ideen, ein früheres Recht auf jene Materie haben. Daher sinkt der Arm, den man eine Weile, mit Ueberwältigung der Schwere, gehoben gehalten: daher ist das behagliche Gefühl der Gesundheit, welches den Sieg der Idee des sich seiner bewußten Organismus über die physischen und chemischen Gesetze, welche ursprünglich die Säfte des Leibes beherrschen, ausdrückt, doch so oft unterbrochen, ja eigentlich immer begleitet von einer gewissen, größern oder kleinern Unbehaglichkeit, welche aus dem Widerstand jener Kräfte hervorgeht, und wodurch schon der vegetative Theil unseres Lebens mit einem leisen Leiden beständig verknüpft ist. Daher auch deprimirt die Verdauung alle animalischen Funktionen, weil sie die ganze Lebenskraft in Anspruch nimmt zur Ueberwältigung chemischer Naturkräfte durch die Assimilation. Daher also überhaupt die Last des physischen Lebens, die Nothwendigkeit des Schlafes und zuletzt des Todes, indem endlich, durch Umstände begünstigt, jene unterjochten Naturkräfte dem, selbst durch den steten Sieg ermüdeten, Organismus die ihnen entrissene Materie wieder abgewinnen, und zur ungehinderten Darstellung ihres Wesens gelangen. Man kann daher auch sagen, daß jeder Organismus die Idee, deren Abbild er ist, nur darstellt nach Abzug des Theiles seiner Kraft, welche verwendet wird auf Ueberwältigung der niedrigeren Ideen, die ihm die Materie streitig machen. Dieses scheint dem Jakob Böhm vorgeschwebt zu haben, wenn er irgendwo sagt, alle Leiber der Menschen und Thiere, ja alle Pflanzen seien eigentlich halb todt. Jenachdem nun dem Organismus die Ueberwältigung jener, die tieferen Stufen der Objektität des Willens ausdrückenden Naturkräfte mehr oder weniger gelingt, wird er zum vollkommeneren oder unvollkommeneren Ausdruck seiner Idee, d. h. steht näher oder ferner dem Ideal, welchem in seiner Gattung die Schönheit zukommt.

So sehen wir in der Natur überall Streit, Kampf und Wechsel des Sieges, und werden eben darin weiterhin die dem Willen wesentliche Entzweiung mit sich selbst deutlicher erkennen. Jede Stufe der Objektivation des Willens macht der andern die Materie, den Raum, die Zeit streitig. Beständig muß die beharrende Materie die Form wechseln, indem, am Leitfaden der Kausalität, mechanische, physische, chemische, organische Erscheinungen, sich gierig zum Hervortreten drängend, einander die Materie entreißen, da jede ihre Idee offenbaren will. Durch die gesammte Natur läßt sich dieser Streit verfolgen, ja, sie besteht eben wieder nur durch ihn: ει γαρ μη ην το νεικος εν τοις πραγμασιν, εν αν ην απαντα, ως φησιν Εμπεδοκλης· (nam si non inesset in rebus contentio, unum omnia essent, ut ait Empedocles. Arist. Metaph. B., 5): ist doch dieser Streit selbst nur die Offenbarung der dem Willen wesentlichen Entzweiung mit sich selbst. Die deutlichste Sichtbarkeit erreicht dieser allgemeine Kampf in der Thierwelt, welche die Pflanzenwelt zu ihrer Nahrung hat, und in welcher selbst wieder jedes Thier die Beute und Nahrung eines andern wird, d. h. die Materie, in welcher seine Idee sich darstellte, zur Darstellung einer andern abtreten muß, indem jedes Thier sein Daseyn nur durch die beständige Aufhebung eines fremden erhalten kann; so daß der Wille zum Leben durchgängig an sich selber zehrt und in verschiedenen Gestalten seine eigene Nahrung ist, bis zuletzt das Menschengeschlecht, weil es alle anderen überwältigt, die Natur für ein Fabrikat zu seinem Gebrauch ansieht, dasselbe Geschlecht jedoch auch, wie wir im vierten Buche finden werden, in sich selbst jenen Kampf, jene Selbstentzweiung des Willens zur furchtbarsten Deutlichkeit offenbart, und homo homini lupus wird. Inzwischen werden wir denselben Streit, dieselbe Ueberwältigung ebensowohl auf den niedrigen Stufen der Objektität des Willens wiedererkennen. Viele Insekten (besonders die Ichneumoniden) legen ihre Eier auf die Haut, ja, in den Leib der Larven anderer Insekten, deren langsame Zerstörung das erste Werk der auskriechenden Brut ist. Der junge Armpolyp, der aus dem alten als ein Zweig herauswächst und sich später von ihm abtrennt, kämpft, während er noch an jenem festsitzt, schon mit ihm um die sich darbietende Beute, so daß einer sie dem andern aus dem Maule reißt (Trembley, Polypod. II, S. 110, u. III, S. 165). In dieser Art liefert aber das grellste Beispiel die Bulldogs-Ameise (bulldog-ant) in Australien: nämlich wenn man sie durchschneidet, beginnt ein Kampf zwischen dem Kopf- und dem Schwanztheil: jener greift diesen mit seinem Gebiß an, und dieser wehrt sich tapfer, durch Stechen auf jenen: der Kampf pflegt eine halbe Stunde zu dauern, bis sie sterben, oder von anderen Ameisen weggeschleppt werden. Der Vorgang findet jedes Mal Statt. (Aus einem Briefe von Howitt, im W. Journal, abgedruckt in Galignani's Messenger, vom 17. Nov. 1855.) An den Ufern des Missouri sieht man bisweilen eine mächtige Eiche von einer riesenhaften wilden Weinrebe, am Stamm und allen Aesten, so umwunden, gefesselt und geschnürt, daß sie, wie erstickt, verwelken muß. Das Selbe zeigt sich sogar auf den niedrigsten Stufen, z. B. wo durch organische Assimilation Wasser und Kohle in Pflanzensaft, oder Pflanze oder Brod in Blut verwandelt wird, und so überall, wo mit Beschränkung der chemischen Kräfte auf eine untergeordnete Wirkungsart, animalische Sekretion vor sich geht; dann auch in der unorganischen Natur, wann z. B. anschießende Krystalle sich begegnen, kreuzen und gegenseitig so stören, daß sie nicht die rein auskrystallisirte Form zeigen können, wie denn fast jede Druse das Abbild eines solchen Streites des Willens auf jener so niedrigen Stufe seiner Objektivation ist; oder auch wann ein Magnet dem Eisen die Magneticität aufzwingt, um seine Idee auch hier darzustellen; oder auch wann der Galvanismus die Wahlverwandtschaften überwältigt, die festesten Verbindungen zersetzt, die chemischen Gesetze so sehr aufhebt, daß die Säure eines am negativen Pol zersetzten Salzes zum positiven Pol muß, ohne mit den Alkalien, durch die sie unterwegs geht, sich verbinden, oder nur den Lakmus, welchen sie antrifft, röthen zu dürfen. Im Großen zeigt es sich in dem Verhältniß zwischen Centralkörper und Planet: dieser, obgleich in entschiedener Abhängigkeit, widersteht noch immer, gleichwie die chemischen Kräfte im Organismus; woraus dann die beständige Spannung zwischen Centripetal- und Centrifugalkraft hervorgeht, welche das Weltgebäude in Bewegung erhält und selbst schon ein Ausdruck ist jenes allgemeinen der Erscheinung des Willens wesentlichen Kampfes, den wir eben betrachten. Denn da jeder Körper als Erscheinung eines Willens angesehen werden muß, Wille aber nothwendig als ein Streben sich darstellt; so kann der ursprüngliche Zustand jedes zur Kugel geballten Weltkörpers nicht Ruhe seyn, sondern Bewegung, Streben vorwärts in den unendlichen Raum, ohne Rast und Ziel. Diesem steht weder das Gesetz der Trägheit, noch das der Kausalität entgegen: denn da, nach jenem, die Materie als solche gegen Ruhe und Bewegung gleichgültig ist, so kann Bewegung, so gut wie Ruhe, ihr ursprünglicher Zustand seyn; daher, wenn wir sie in Bewegung vorfinden, wir ebenso wenig berechtigt sind vorauszusetzen, daß derselben ein Zustand der Ruhe vorhergegangen sei, und nach der Ursache des Eintritts der Bewegung zu fragen, als umgekehrt, wenn wir sie in Ruhe fänden, wir eine dieser vorhergegangene Bewegung vorauszusetzen und nach der Ursach ihrer Aufhebung zu fragen hätten. Daher ist kein erster Anstoß für die Centrifugalkraft zu suchen, sondern sie ist, bei den Planeten, nach Kants und Laplaces Hypothese, Ueberbleibsel der ursprünglichen Rotation des Centralkörpers, von welchem jene sich, bei dessen Zusammenziehung, getrennt haben. Diesem selbst aber ist Bewegung wesentlich: er rotirt noch immer und fliegt zugleich dahin im endlosen Raum, oder cirkulirt vielleicht um einen größern, uns unsichtbaren Centralkörper. Diese Ansicht stimmt gänzlich überein mit der Muthmaaßung der Astronomen von einer Centralsonne, wie auch mit dem wahrgenommenen Fortrücken unseres ganzen Sonnensystems, vielleicht auch des ganzen Sternhaufens, dem unsere Sonne angehört, daraus endlich auf ein allgemeines Fortrücken aller Fixsterne, mit sammt der Centralsonne, zu schließen ist, welches freilich im unendlichen Raum alle Bedeutung verliert (da Bewegung im absoluten Raum von der Ruhe sich nicht unterscheidet) und eben hiedurch, wie schon unmittelbar durch das Streben und Fliegen ohne Ziel, zum Ausdruck jener Nichtigkeit, jener Ermangelung eines letzten Zweckes wird, welche wir, am Schlusse dieses Buches, dem Streben des Willens in allen seinen Erscheinungen werden zuerkennen müssen; daher eben auch wieder endloser Raum und endlose Zeit die allgemeinsten und wesentlichsten Formen seiner gesammten Erscheinung seyn mußten, als welche sein ganzes Wesen auszudrücken da ist. — Wir können endlich den in Betrachtung genommenen Kampf aller Willenserscheinungen gegen einander sogar schon in der bloßen Materie, als solcher betrachtet, wiedererkennen, sofern nämlich das Wesen ihrer Erscheinung von Kant richtig ausgesprochen ist als Repulsiv- und Attraktivkraft; so daß schon sie nur in einem Kampf entgegenstrebender Kräfte ihr Daseyn hat. Abstrahiren wir von aller chemischen Verschiedenheit der Materie, oder denken uns in die Kette der Ursachen und Wirkungen so weit zurück, daß noch keine chemische Differenz da ist; so bleibt uns die bloße Materie, die Welt zu einer Kugel geballt, deren Leben, d. h. Objektivation des Willens, nun jener Kampf zwischen Attraktions- und Repulsionskraft ausmacht, jene als Schwere, von allen Seiten zum Centrum drängend, diese als Undurchdringlichkeit, sei es durch Starrheit oder Elasticität, jener widerstrebend, welcher stete Drang und Widerstand als die Objektität des Willens auf der alleruntersten Stufe betrachtet werden kann und schon dort dessen Charakter ausdrückt.

So sähen wir denn hier, auf der untersten Stufe, den Willen sich darstellen als einen blinden Drang, ein finsteres, dumpfes Treiben, fern von aller unmittelbaren Erkennbarkeit. Es ist die einfachste und schwächste Art seiner Objektivation. Als solcher blinder Drang und erkenntnißloses Streben erscheint er aber noch in der ganzen unorganischen Natur, in allen den ursprünglichen Kräften, welche aufzusuchen und ihre Gesetze kennen zu lernen, Physik und Chemie beschäftigt sind, und jede von welchen sich uns in Millionen ganz gleichartiger und gesetzmäßiger, keine Spur von individuellem Charakter ankündigender Erscheinungen darstellt, sondern bloß vervielfältigt durch Zeit und Raum, d. i. durch das principium individuationis, wie ein Bild durch die Facetten eines Glases vervielfältigt wird.

Von Stufe zu Stufe sich deutlicher objektivirend, wirkt dennoch auch im Pflanzenreich, wo nicht mehr eigentliche Ursachen, sondern Reize das Band seiner Erscheinungen sind, der Wille doch noch völlig erkenntnißlos, als finstere treibende Kraft, und so endlich auch noch im vegetativen Theil der thierischen Erscheinung, in der Hervorbringung und Ausbildung jedes Thieres und in der Unterhaltung der innern Oekonomie desselben, wo immer nur noch bloße Reize seine Erscheinung nothwendig bestimmen. Die immer höher stehenden Stufen der Objektität des Willens führen endlich zu dem Punkt, wo das Individuum, welches die Idee darstellt, nicht mehr durch bloße Bewegung auf Reize seine zu assimilirende Nahrung erhalten konnte; weil solcher Reiz abgewartet werden muß, hier aber die Nahrung eine specieller bestimmte ist, und bei der immer mehr angewachsenen Mannigfaltigkeit der Erscheinungen das Gedränge und Gewirre so groß geworden ist, daß sie einander stören, und der Zufall, von dem das durch bloße Reize bewegte Individuum seine Nahrung erwarten muß, zu ungünstig seyn würde. Die Nahrung muß daher aufgesucht, ausgewählt werden, von dem Punkt an, wo das Thier dem Ei oder Mutterleibe, in welchem es erkenntnißlos vegetirte, sich entwunden hat. Dadurch wird hier die Bewegung auf Motive und wegen dieser die Erkenntniß nothwendig, welche also eintritt als ein auf dieser Stufe der Objektivation des Willens erfordertes Hülfsmittel, μηχανη, zur Erhaltung des Individuums und Fortpflanzung des Geschlechts. Sie tritt hervor, repräsentirt durch das Gehirn oder ein größeres Ganglion, eben wie jede andere Bestrebung oder Bestimmung des sich objektivirenden Willens durch ein Organ repräsentirt ist, d. h. für die Vorstellung sich als ein Organ darstellt [19]. — Allein mit diesem Hülfsmittel, dieser μηχανη, steht nun, mit einem Schlage, die Welt als Vorstellung da, mit allen ihren Formen, Objekt und Subjekt, Zeit, Raum, Vielheit und Kausalität. Die Welt zeigt jetzt die zweite Seite. Bisher bloß Wille, ist sie nun zugleich Vorstellung, Objekt des erkennenden Subjekts. Der Wille, der bis hieher im Dunkeln, höchst sicher und unfehlbar, seinen Trieb verfolgte, hat sich auf dieser Stufe ein Licht angezündet, als ein Mittel, welches nothwendig wurde, zur Aufhebung des Nachtheils, der aus dem Gedränge und der komplicirten Beschaffenheit seiner Erscheinungen eben den vollendetesten erwachsen würde. Die bisherige unfehlbare Sicherheit und Gesetzmäßigkeit, mit welcher er in der unorganischen und bloß vegetativen Natur wirkte, beruhte darauf, daß er allein in seinem ursprünglichen Wesen, als blinder Drang, Wille, thätig war, ohne Beihülfe, aber auch ohne Störung von einer zweiten ganz andern Welt, der Welt als Vorstellung, welche zwar nur das Abbild seines eigenen Wesens, aber doch ganz anderer Natur ist und jetzt eingreift in den Zusammenhang seiner Erscheinungen. Dadurch hört nunmehr die unfehlbare Sicherheit derselben auf. Die Thiere sind schon dem Schein, der Täuschung [20] Hiezu Kap. 22 des zweiten Bandes; wie auch in meiner Schrift „Ueber den Willen in der Natur“, S. 54 ff. u. S. 70—79 der ersten, oder S. 46 ff. u. S. 63—72 der zweiten Auflage. ausgesetzt. Sie haben indessen bloß anschauliche Vorstellungen, keine Begriffe, keine Reflexion, sind daher an die Gegenwart gebunden, können nicht die Zukunft berücksichtigen. — Es scheint als ob diese vernunftlose Erkenntniß nicht in allen Fällen hinreichend zu ihrem Zweck gewesen sei und bisweilen gleichsam einer Nachhülfe bedurft habe. Denn es bietet sich uns die sehr merkwürdige Erscheinung dar, daß das blinde Wirken des Willens und das von der Erkenntniß erleuchtete, in zwei Arten von Erscheinungen, auf eine höchst überraschende Weise, eines in das Gebiet des andern hinübergreifen. Einmal nämlich finden wir, mitten unter dem von der anschaulichen Erkenntniß und ihren Motiven geleiteten Thun der Thiere, ein ohne diese, also mit der Nothwendigkeit des blindwirkenden Willens vollzogenes, in den Kunsttrieben, welche, durch kein Motiv, noch Erkenntniß geleitet, das Ansehen haben, als brächten sie ihre Werke sogar auf abstrakte, vernünftige Motive zu Stande. Der andere diesem entgegengesetzte Fall ist der, wo umgekehrt das Licht der Erkenntniß in die Werkstätte des blindwirkenden Willens eindringt und die vegetativen Funktionen des menschlichen Organismus beleuchtet: im magnetischen Hellsehen. — Endlich nun da, wo der Wille zum höchsten Grade seiner Objektivation gelangt ist, reicht die den Thieren aufgegangene Erkenntniß des Verstandes, dem die Sinne die Data liefern, woraus bloße Anschauung, die an die Gegenwart gebunden ist, hervorgeht, nicht mehr zu: das komplicirte, vielseitige, bildsame, höchst bedürftige und unzähligen Verletzungen ausgesetzte Wesen, der Mensch, mußte, um bestehen zu können, durch eine doppelte Erkenntniß erleuchtet werden, gleichsam eine höhere Potenz der anschaulichen Erkenntniß mußte zu dieser hinzutreten, eine Reflexion jener: die Vernunft als das Vermögen abstrakter Begriffe. Mit dieser war Besonnenheit da, enthaltend Ueberblick der Zukunft und Vergangenheit, und, in Folge derselben, Ueberlegung, Sorge, Fähigkeit des prämeditirten, von der Gegenwart unabhängigen Handelns, endlich auch völlig deutliches Bewußtseyn der eigenen Willensentscheidungen als solcher. Trat nun schon mit der bloß anschauenden Erkenntniß die Möglichkeit des Scheines und der Täuschung ein, wodurch die vorige Unfehlbarkeit im erkenntnißlosen Treiben des Willens aufgehoben wurde, deshalb Instinkt und Kunsttrieb, als erkenntnißlose Willensäußerungen, mitten unter den von Erkenntniß geleiteten, ihm zu Hülfe kommen mußten; so geht mit dem Eintritt der Vernunft jene Sicherheit und Untrüglichkeit der Willensäußerungen (welche am andern Extrem, in der unorganischen Natur, sogar als strenge Gesetzmäßigkeit erscheint) fast ganz verloren: der Instinkt tritt völlig zurück, die Ueberlegung, welche jetzt Alles ersetzen soll, gebiert (wie im ersten Buche ausgeführt) Schwanken und Unsicherheit: der Irrthum wird möglich, welcher in vielen Fällen die adäquate Objektivation des Willens durch Thaten hindert. Denn, wenn gleich der Wille schon im Charakter seine bestimmte und unveränderliche Richtung genommen hat, welcher entsprechend das Wollen selbst unfehlbar, nach Anlaß der Motive, eintritt; so kann doch der Irrthum die Aeußerungen desselben verfälschen, indem dann Wahnmotive gleich wirklichen einfließen und diese aufheben²¹: so z. B. wenn Superstition eingebildete Motive unterschiebt, die den Menschen zu einer Handlungsweise zwingen, welche der Art, wie sein Wille, unter den vorhandenen Umständen, sich sonst äußern würde, gerade entgegengesetzt sind: Agamemnon schlachtet seine Tochter; ein Geizhals spendet Almosen, aus reinem Egoismus, in der Hoffnung dereinstiger hundertfacher Wiedererstattung, u. s. f.

Die Erkenntniß überhaupt, vernünftige sowohl als bloß anschauliche, geht also ursprünglich aus dem Willen selbst hervor, gehört zum Wesen der höhern Stufen seiner Objektivation, als eine bloße μηχανη, ein Mittel zur Erhaltung des Individuums und der Art, so gut wie jedes Organ des Leibes. Ursprünglich also zum Dienste des Willens, zur Vollbringung seiner Zwecke bestimmt, bleibt sie ihm auch fast durchgängig gänzlich dienstbar: so in allen Thieren und in beinahe allen Menschen. Jedoch werden wir im dritten Buche sehen, wie in einzelnen Menschen die Erkenntniß sich dieser Dienstbarkeit entziehen, ihr Joch abwerfen und frei von allen Zwecken des Wollens rein für sich bestehen kann, als bloßer klarer Spiegel der Welt, woraus die Kunst hervorgeht; endlich im vierten Buch, wie durch diese Art der Erkenntniß, wenn sie auf den Willen zurückwirkt, die Selbstaufhebung²² Die Scholastiker sagten daher recht gut: Causa finalis movet non secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. Siehe Suarez, Disp. metaph. disp. XXIII, sect. 7 et 8. desselben eintreten kann, d. i. die Resignation, welche das letzte Ziel, ja, das innerste Wesen aller Tugend und Heiligkeit, und die Erlösung von der Welt ist.

28 Wir haben die große Mannigfaltigkeit und Verschiedenheit der Erscheinungen betrachtet, in denen der Wille sich objektivirt; ja, wir haben ihren endlosen und unversöhnlichen Kampf gegen einander gesehen. Dennoch ist, unserer ganzen bisherigen Darstellung zufolge, der Wille selbst, als Ding an sich, keineswegs begriffen in jener Vielheit, jenem Wechsel. Die Verschiedenheit der (Platonischen) Ideen, d. i. Abstufungen der Objektivation, die Menge der Individuen, in welchen jede von diesen sich darstellt, der Kampf der Formen um die Materie: dies Alles trifft nicht ihn, sondern ist nur die Art und Weise seiner Objektivation, und hat nur durch diese eine mittelbare Relation zu ihm, vermöge welcher es zum Ausdruck seines Wesens für die Vorstellung gehört. Wie eine Zauberlaterne viele und mannigfaltige Bilder zeigt, es aber nur eine und dieselbe Flamme ist, welche ihnen allen die Sichtbarkeit ertheilt; so ist in allen mannigfaltigen Erscheinungen, welche neben einander die Welt füllen, oder nach einander als Begebenheiten sich verdrängen, doch nur der eine Wille das Erscheinende, dessen Sichtbarkeit, Objektität das Alles ist, und der unbewegt bleibt mitten in jenem Wechsel: er allein ist das Ding an sich: alles Objekt aber ist Erscheinung, Phänomen, in Kants Sprache zu reden. — Obgleich im Menschen, als (Platonischer) Idee, der Wille seine deutlichste und vollkommenste Objektivation findet; so konnte dennoch diese allein sein Wesen nicht ausdrücken. Die Idee des Menschen durfte, um in der gehörigen Bedeutung zu erscheinen, nicht allein und abgerissen sich darstellen, sondern mußte begleitet seyn von der Stufenfolge abwärts durch alle Gestaltungen der Thiere, durch das Pflanzenreich, bis zum Unorganischen: sie alle erst ergänzen sich zur vollständigen Objektivation des Willens; sie werden von der Idee des Menschen so vorausgesetzt, wie die Blüthen des Baumes Blätter, Aeste, Stamm und Wurzel voraussetzen: sie bilden eine Pyramide, deren Spitze der Mensch ist. Auch kann man, wenn man an Vergleichungen Wohlgefallen hat, sagen: ihre Erscheinung begleitet die des Menschen so nothwendig, wie das volle Licht begleitet ist von den allmäligen Gradationen aller Halbschatten, durch die es sich in die Finsterniß verliert: oder auch man kann sie den Nachhall des Menschen nennen und sagen: Thier und Pflanze sind die herabsteigende Quint und Terz des Menschen, das unorganische Reich ist die untere Oktav. Die ganze Wahrheit dieses letzten Gleichnisses wird uns aber erst deutlich werden, wenn wir, im folgenden Buche, die tiefe Bedeutsamkeit der Musik zu ergründen suchen und sich uns zeigen wird, wie die durch hohe leichtbewegliche Töne im Zusammenhang fortschreitende Melodie, in gewissem Sinn, als das durch Reflexion Zusammenhang habende Leben und Streben des Menschen darstellend, anzusehen ist, wo dann dagegen die unzusammenhängenden Ripienstimmen und der schwerbewegliche Baß, aus denen die zur Vollständigkeit der Musik nothwendige Harmonie hervorgeht, die übrige thierische und erkenntnißlose Natur abbilden. Doch davon an seinem Orte, wo es nicht mehr so paradox klingen wird. — Wir finden aber auch jene innere, von der adäquaten Objektität des Willens unzertrennliche Nothwendigkeit der Stufenfolge seiner Erscheinungen, in dem Ganzen dieser selbst, durch eine äußere Nothwendigkeit ausgedrückt, durch diejenige nämlich, vermöge welcher der Mensch zu seiner Erhaltung der Thiere bedarf, diese stufenweise eines des andern, dann auch der Pflanzen, welche wieder des Bodens bedürfen, des Wassers, der chemischen Elemente und ihrer Mischungen, des Planeten, der Sonne, der Rotation und des Umlaufs um diese, der Schiefe der Ekliptik u. s. f. — Im Grunde entspringt dies daraus, daß der Wille an sich selber zehren muß, weil außer ihm nichts da ist und er ein hungriger Wille ist. Daher die Jagd, die Angst und das Leiden.

Wie die Erkenntniß der Einheit des Willens, als Dinges an sich, in der unendlichen Verschiedenheit und Mannigfaltigkeit der Erscheinungen, allein den wahren Aufschluß giebt über jene wundersame, unverkennbare Analogie aller Produktionen der Natur, jene Familienähnlichkeit, die sie als Variationen des selben, nicht mitgegebenen Themas betrachten läßt; so wird gleichermaaßen durch die deutlich und tief gefaßte Erkenntniß jener Harmonie, jenes wesentlichen Zusammenhanges aller Theile der Welt, jener Nothwendigkeit ihrer Abstufung, welche wir soeben betrachtet haben, sich uns eine wahre und genügende Einsicht öffnen in das innere Wesen und die Bedeutung der unleugbaren Zweckmäßigkeit aller organischen Naturprodukte, die wir sogar a priori bei der Betrachtung und Beurtheilung derselben voraussetzen.

Diese Zweckmäßigkeit ist doppelter Art: theils eine innere, d. h. eine so geordnete Uebereinstimmung aller Theile eines einzelnen Organismus, daß die Erhaltung desselben und seiner Gattung daraus hervorgeht, und daher als Zweck jener Anordnung sich darstellt. Theils aber ist die Zweckmäßigkeit eine äußere, nämlich ein Verhältniß der unorganischen Natur zu der organischen überhaupt, oder auch einzelner Theile der organischen Natur zu einander, welches die Erhaltung der gesammten organischen Natur, oder auch einzelner Thiergattungen, möglich macht und daher als Mittel zu diesem Zweck unserer Beurtheilung entgegentritt.

Die innere Zweckmäßigkeit tritt nun folgendermaaßen in den Zusammenhang unserer Betrachtung. Wenn, dem Bisherigen zufolge, alle Verschiedenheiten der Gestalten in der Natur und alle Vielheit der Individuen nicht dem Willen, sondern nur seiner Objektität und der Form dieser angehört; so folgt nothwendig, daß er untheilbar und in jeder Erscheinung ganz gegenwärtig ist, wiewohl die Grade seiner Objektivation, die (Platonischen) Ideen, sehr verschieden sind. Wir können, zu leichterer Faßlichkeit, diese verschiedenen Ideen als einzelne und an sich einfache Willensakte betrachten, in denen sein Wesen sich mehr oder weniger ausdrückt: die Individuen aber sind wieder Erscheinungen der Ideen, also jener Akte, in Zeit und Raum und Vielheit. — Nun behält, auf den niedrigsten Stufen der Objektität, ein solcher Akt (oder eine Idee) auch in der Erscheinung seine Einheit bei; während er auf den höhern Stufen, um zu erscheinen, einer ganzen Reihe von Zuständen und Entwickelungen in der Zeit bedarf, welche alle zusammengenommen erst den Ausdruck seines Wesens vollenden. So z. B. hat die Idee, welche sich in irgend einer allgemeinen Naturkraft offenbart, immer nur eine einfache Aeußerung, wenn gleich diese nach Maaßgabe der äußeren Verhältnisse sich verschieden darstellt: sonst könnte auch ihre Identität gar nicht nachgewiesen werden, welches eben geschieht durch Absonderung der bloß aus den äußeren Verhältnissen entspringenden Verschiedenheit. Ebenso hat der Krystall nur eine Lebensäußerung, sein Anschießen, welche nachher an der erstarrten Form, dem Leichnam jenes momentanen Lebens, ihren völlig hinreichenden und erschöpfenden Ausdruck hat. Schon die Pflanze aber drückt die Idee, deren Erscheinung sie ist, nicht mit einem Male und durch eine einfache Aeußerung aus, sondern in einer Succession von Entwickelungen ihrer Organe, in der Zeit. Das Thier entwickelt nicht nur auf gleiche Weise, in einer Succession oft sehr verschiedener Gestalten (Metamorphose) seinen Organismus; sondern diese Gestalt selbst, obwohl schon Objektität des Willens auf dieser Stufe, reicht doch nicht hin zur vollständigen Darstellung seiner Idee, vielmehr wird diese erst ergänzt durch die Handlungen des Thieres, in denen sein empirischer Charakter, welcher in der ganzen Species derselbe ist, sich ausspricht und erst die vollständige Offenbarung der Idee ist, wobei sie den bestimmten Organismus als Grundbedingung voraussetzt. Beim Menschen ist schon in jedem Individuo der empirische Charakter ein eigenthümlicher (ja, wie wir im vierten Buche sehen werden, bis zur völligen Aufhebung des Charakters der Species, nämlich durch Selbstaufhebung des ganzen Wollens). Was, durch die nothwendige Entwickelung in der Zeit und das dadurch bedingte Zerfallen in einzelne Handlungen, als empirischer Charakter erkannt wird, ist, mit Abstraktion von dieser zeitlichen Form der Erscheinung, der intelligible Charakter, nach dem Ausdrucke Kants, der in der Nachweisung dieser Unterscheidung und Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Freiheit und Nothwendigkeit, d. h. eigentlich zwischen dem Willen als Ding an sich und seiner Erscheinung in der Zeit, sein unsterbliches Verdienst besonders herrlich zeigt [23]. Der intelligible Charakter fällt also mit der Idee, oder noch eigentlicher mit dem ursprünglichen Willensakt, der sich in ihr offenbart²⁴ Siehe „Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Auflösung der kosmol. Ideen von der Totalität der Ableitung der Weltbegebenheiten“, S. 560—586 der fünften u. S. 532 ff. der ersten Auflage, und „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“, vierte Auflage, S. 169—179. Rosenkranz' Ausgabe, S. 224 ff. Vergl. meine Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 43., zusammen: insofern ist also nicht nur der empirische Charakter jedes Menschen, sondern auch der jeder Thierspecies, ja jeder Pflanzenspecies und sogar jeder ursprünglichen Kraft der unorganischen Natur, als Erscheinung eines intelligibeln Charakters, d. h. eines außerzeitlichen untheilbaren Willensaktes anzusehen. — Beiläufig möchte ich hier aufmerksam machen auf die Naivetät, mit der jede Pflanze ihren ganzen Charakter durch die bloße Gestalt ausspricht und offen darlegt, ihr ganzes Seyn und Wollen offenbart, wodurch die Physiognomien der Pflanzen so interessant sind; während das Thier, um seiner Idee nach erkannt zu werden, schon in seinem Thun und Treiben beobachtet, der Mensch vollends erforscht und versucht seyn will, da ihn Vernunft der Verstellung in hohem Grade fähig macht. Das Thier ist um ebenso viel naiver als der Mensch, wie die Pflanze naiver ist als das Thier. Im Thiere sehen wir den Willen zum Leben gleichsam nackter, als im Menschen, wo er mit so vieler Erkenntniß überkleidet und zudem durch die Fähigkeit der Verstellung verhüllt ist, daß sein wahres Wesen fast nur zufällig und stellenweise zum Vorschein kommt. Ganz nackt, aber auch viel schwächer, zeigt er sich in der Pflanze, als bloßer, blinder Drang zum Daseyn, ohne Zweck und Ziel. Denn diese offenbart ihr ganzes Wesen dem ersten Blick und mit vollkommener Unschuld, die nicht darunter leidet, daß sie die Genitalien, welche bei allen Thieren den verstecktesten Platz erhalten haben, auf ihrem Gipfel zur Schau trägt.

Diese Unschuld der Pflanze beruht auf ihrer Erkenntnißlosigkeit: nicht im Wollen, sondern im Wollen mit Erkenntniß liegt die Schuld. Jede Pflanze erzählt nun zunächst von ihrer Heimath, dem Klima derselben und der Natur des Bodens, dem sie entsprossen ist. Daher erkennt selbst der wenig Geübte leicht, ob eine exotische Pflanze der tropischen, oder der gemäßigten Zone angehöre, und ob sie im Wasser, im Sumpfe, auf Bergen, oder auf der Haide wachse. Außerdem aber spricht jede Pflanze noch den speciellen Willen ihrer Gattung aus und sagt etwas, das sich in keiner andern Sprache ausdrücken läßt. — Aber jetzt zur Anwendung des Gesagten auf die teleologische Betrachtung der Organismen, sofern sie ihre innere Zweckmäßigkeit betrifft. Wenn in der unorganischen Natur die überall als ein einziger Willensakt zu betrachtende Idee sich auch nur in einer einzigen und immer gleichen Aeußerung offenbart, und man daher sagen kann, daß hier der empirische Charakter unmittelbar der Einheit des intelligibeln theilhaft ist, gleichsam mit ihm zusammenfällt, weshalb hier keine innere Zweckmäßigkeit sich zeigen kann; wenn dagegen alle Organismen, durch eine Succession von Entwickelungen nach einander, welche durch eine Mannigfaltigkeit verschiedener Theile neben einander bedingt ist, ihre Idee darstellen, also die Summe der Aeußerungen ihres empirischen Charakters erst in der Zusammenfassung Ausdruck des intelligibeln ist; so hebt dieses nothwendige Nebeneinander der Theile und Nacheinander der Entwickelung doch nicht die Einheit der erscheinenden Idee, des sich äußernden Willensaktes, auf: vielmehr findet diese Einheit nunmehr ihren Ausdruck an der nothwendigen Beziehung und Verkettung jener Theile und Entwickelungen mit einander, nach dem Gesetz der Kausalität. Da es der einzige und untheilbare und eben dadurch ganz mit sich selbst übereinstimmende Wille ist, der sich in der ganzen Idee, als wie in einem Akt offenbart; so muß seine Erscheinung, obwohl in eine Verschiedenheit von Theilen und Zuständen auseinandertretend, doch in einer durchgängigen Uebereinstimmung derselben jene Einheit wieder zeigen: dies geschieht durch eine nothwendige Beziehung und Abhängigkeit aller Theile von einander, wodurch auch in der Erscheinung die Einheit der Idee wiederhergestellt wird. Demzufolge erkennen wir nun jene verschiedenen Theile und Funktionen des Organismus wechselseitig als Mittel und Zweck von einander, den Organismus selbst aber als den letzten Zweck aller. Folglich ist sowohl das Auseinandertreten der an sich einfachen Idee in die Vielheit der Theile und der Zustände des Organismus einerseits, als die Wiederherstellung ihrer Einheit durch die nothwendige Verknüpfung jener Theile und Funktionen, dadurch daß sie Ursach und Wirkung, also Mittel und Zweck, von einander sind, andererseits, nicht dem erscheinenden Willen als solchem, dem Dinge an sich, sondern nur seiner Erscheinung in Raum, Zeit und Kausalität (lauter Gestalten des Satzes vom Grunde, der Form der Erscheinung) eigenthümlich und wesentlich. Sie gehören der Welt als Vorstellung, nicht der Welt als Wille an: sie gehören zur Art und Weise, wie der Wille Objekt, d. i. Vorstellung wird, auf dieser Stufe seiner Objektität. Wer in den Sinn dieser vielleicht etwas schwierigen Erörterung eingedrungen ist, wird nunmehr recht eigentlich die Lehre Kants verstehen, welche dahin geht, daß sowohl die Zweckmäßigkeit des Organischen, als auch die Gesetzmäßigkeit des Unorganischen, allererst von unserm Verstande in die Natur hineingebracht wird, daher beide nur der Erscheinung, nicht dem Dinge an sich zukommen. Die oben erwähnte Verwunderung, über die unfehlbare Konstanz der Gesetzmäßigkeit der unorganischen Natur ist im Wesentlichen dieselbe mit der, über die Zweckmäßigkeit der organischen Natur: denn in beiden Fällen überrascht uns nur der Anblick der ursprünglichen Einheit der Idee, welche, für die Erscheinung, die Form der Vielheit und Verschiedenheit angenommen hatte²⁵.

Was nun, nach der oben gemachten Eintheilung, die zweite Art der Zweckmäßigkeit, die äußere betrifft, welche sich nicht in der innern Oekonomie der Organismen, sondern in der Unterstützung und Hülfe zeigt, welche sie von Außen, sowohl von der unorganischen Natur, als einer vom andern erhalten; so findet dieselbe ihre Erklärung im Allgemeinen ebenfalls in der eben aufgestellten Erörterung, indem ja die ganze Welt, mit allen ihren Erscheinungen, die Objektität des einen und untheilbaren Willens ist, die Idee, welche sich zu allen andern Ideen verhält, wie die Harmonie zu den einzelnen Stimmen, daher jene Einheit des Willens sich auch in der Uebereinstimmung aller Erscheinungen desselben zu einander zeigen muß. Allein wir können diese Einsicht zu viel größerer Deutlichkeit erheben, wenn wir auf die Erscheinungen jener äußern Zweckmäßigkeit und Uebereinstimmung der verschiedenen Theile der Natur zu einander etwas näher eingehen, welche Erörterung zugleich auch auf die vorhergehende Licht zurückwerfen wird. Wir werden aber dahin am besten durch Betrachtung folgender Analogie gelangen.

Der Charakter jedes einzelnen Menschen kann, sofern er durchaus individuell und nicht ganz in dem der Species begriffen ist, als eine besondere Idee, entsprechend einem eigenthümlichen Objektivationsakt des Willens, angesehen werden. Dieser Akt selbst wäre dann sein intelligibler Charakter, sein empirischer aber [26] Vergleiche „Ueber den Willen in der Natur“, am Schlusse der Rubrik „Vergleichende Anatomie“. die Erscheinung desselben. Der empirische Charakter ist ganz und gar durch den intelligibeln, welcher grundloser, d. h. als Ding an sich dem Satz vom Grund (der Form der Erscheinung) nicht unterworfener Wille ist, bestimmt. Der empirische Charakter muß in einem Lebenslauf das Abbild des intelligibeln liefern, und kann nicht anders ausfallen, als das Wesen dieses es erfordert. Allein diese Bestimmung erstreckt sich nur auf das Wesentliche, nicht auf das Unwesentliche des demnach erscheinenden Lebenslaufes. Zu diesem Unwesentlichen gehört die nähere Bestimmung der Begebenheiten und Handlungen, welche der Stoff sind, an dem der empirische Charakter sich zeigt. Diese werden von äußeren Umständen bestimmt, welche die Motive abgeben, auf welche der Charakter seiner Natur gemäß reagirt, und da sie sehr verschieden seyn können, so wird sich nach ihrem Einfluß die äußere Gestaltung der Erscheinung des empirischen Charakters, also die bestimmte faktische oder historische Gestaltung des Lebenslaufes, richten müssen. Diese wird sehr verschieden ausfallen können, wenn gleich das Wesentliche dieser Erscheinung, ihr Inhalt, derselbe bleibt: so z. B. ist es unwesentlich, ob man um Nüsse oder Kronen spielt: ob man aber beim Spiel betrügt, oder ehrlich zu Werk geht, das ist das Wesentliche: dieses wird durch den intelligibeln Charakter, jenes durch äußern Einfluß bestimmt. Wie das selbe Thema sich in hundert Variationen darstellen kann, so der selbe Charakter in hundert sehr verschiedenen Lebensläufen. So verschiedenartig aber auch der äußere Einfluß seyn kann, so muß dennoch, wie er auch ausfalle, der sich im Lebenslauf ausdrückende empirische Charakter den intelligibeln genau objektiviren, indem er seine Objektivation dem vorgefundenen Stoffe faktischer Umstände anpaßt. — Etwas jenem Einfluß äußerer Umstände auf den im Wesentlichen durch den Charakter bestimmten Lebenslauf Analoges haben wir nun anzunehmen, wenn wir uns denken wollen, wie der Wille, im ursprünglichen Akt seiner Objektivation, die verschiedenen Ideen bestimmt, in denen er sich objektivirt, d. h. die verschiedenen Gestalten von Naturwesen aller Art, in welche er seine Objektivation vertheilt und die deswegen nothwendig eine Beziehung zu einander in der Erscheinung haben müssen. Wir müssen annehmen, daß zwischen allen jenen Erscheinungen des einen Willens ein allgemeines gegenseitiges sich Anpassen und Bequemen zu einander Statt fand, wobei aber, wie wir bald deutlicher sehen werden, alle Zeitbestimmung auszulassen ist, da die Idee außer der Zeit liegt. Demnach mußte jede Erscheinung sich den Umgebungen, in die sie eintrat, anpassen, diese aber wieder auch jener, wenn solche gleich in der Zeit eine viel spätere Stelle einnimmt; und überall sehen wir diesen consensus naturae. Angemessen darum ist jede Pflanze ihrem Boden und Himmelsstrich, jedes Thier seinem Element und der Beute, die seine Nahrung werden soll, ist auch irgendwie einigermaaßen geschützt gegen seinen natürlichen Verfolger; angemessen ist das Auge dem Licht und seiner Brechbarkeit, die Lunge und das Blut der Luft, die Schwimmblase dem Wasser, das Auge des Seehundes dem Wechsel seines Mediums, die wasserhaltigen Zellen im Magen des Kameels der Dürre Afrikanischer Wüsten, das Segel des Nautilus dem Winde, der sein Schiffchen treiben soll, und so bis auf die speciellsten und erstaunlichsten äußeren Zweckmäßigkeiten herab²⁷. Nun aber ist hiebei von allen Zeitverhältnissen zu abstrahiren, da solche nur die Erscheinung der Idee, nicht diese selbst betreffen können. Demgemäß ist jene Erklärungsart auch rückwärts zu gebrauchen und nicht nur anzunehmen, daß jede Species sich nach den vorgefundenen Umständen bequemte, sondern diese in der Zeit vorhergegangenen Umstände selbst ebenso Rücksicht nahmen auf die dereinst noch kommenden Wesen. Denn es ist ja der eine und selbe Wille, der sich in der ganzen Welt objektivirt: er kennt keine Zeit, da diese Gestalt des Satzes vom Grunde nicht ihm, noch seiner ursprünglichen Objektität, den Ideen, angehört; sondern nur der Art und Weise, wie diese von den selbst vergänglichen Individuen erkannt werden, d. h. der Erscheinung der Ideen. Daher ist bei unserer gegenwärtigen Betrachtung der Art, wie die Objektivation des Willens sich in die Ideen vertheilt, die Zeitfolge ganz ohne Bedeutung, und die Ideen, deren Erscheinungen dem Gesetz der Kausalität, dem sie als solche unterworfen sind, gemäß, früher in die Zeitfolge eintraten, haben dadurch [28] Siehe „Ueber den Willen in der Natur“, die Rubrik „Vergleichende Anatomie“. kein Vorrecht vor denen, deren Erscheinung später eintritt, welche vielmehr gerade die vollkommensten Objektivationen des Willens sind, denen sich die früheren eben so sehr anpassen mußten, wie diese jenen. Also der Lauf der Planeten, die Neigung der Ekliptik, die Rotation der Erde, die Vertheilung des festen Landes und des Meeres, die Atmosphäre, das Licht, die Wärme und alle ähnlichen Erscheinungen, welche in der Natur das sind, was in der Harmonie der Grundbaß, bequemten sich ahndungsvoll den kommenden Geschlechtern lebender Wesen, deren Träger und Erhalter sie werden sollten. Eben so bequemte sich der Boden der Ernährung der Pflanzen, diese der Ernährung der Thiere, diese der Ernährung anderer Thiere, ebenso wohl als umgekehrt alle diese wieder jenen. Alle Theile der Natur kommen sich entgegen, weil ein Wille es ist, der in ihnen allen erscheint, die Zeitfolge aber seiner ursprünglichen und allein adäquaten Objektität (diesen Ausdruck erklärt das folgende Buch), den Ideen, ganz fremd ist. Noch jetzt, da die Geschlechter sich nur zu erhalten, nicht mehr zu entstehen haben, sehen wir hin und wieder eine solche sich auf das Zukünftige erstreckende, eigentlich von der Zeitfolge gleichsam abstrahirende Vorsorge der Natur, ein Sichbequemen dessen was da ist, nach dem was noch kommen soll. So baut der Vogel das Nest für die Jungen, welche er noch nicht kennt; der Biber errichtet einen Bau, dessen Zweck ihm unbekannt ist; die Ameise, der Hamster, die Biene sammeln Vorräthe zu dem ihnen unbekannten Winter; die Spinne, der Ameisenlöwe errichten, wie mit überlegter List, Fallen für den künftigen, ihnen unbekannten Raub; die Insekten legen ihre Eier dahin, wo die künftige Brut künftig Nahrung findet. Wann, um die Blüthezeit, die weibliche Blume der diöcistischen Valisneria die Spiralwindungen ihres Stängels, von denen sie bisher an den Grund des Wassers gehalten wurde, entwickelt und dadurch auf die Oberfläche hinaufsteigt, genau dann reißt die auf dem Grunde des Wassers an einem kurzen Stängel wachsende männliche Blume sich von diesem ab und gelangt so, mit Aufopferung ihres Lebens, auf die Oberfläche, woselbst sie umherschwimmend die weibliche Blume aufsucht, welche sodann, nach geschehener Befruchtung, sich wieder durch Kontraktion ihrer Spirale zurückzieht auf den Grund, woselbst die Frucht sich ausbildet²⁹. Auch hier muß ich nochmals der Larve des männlichen Hirschschröters gedenken, die das Loch im Holze zu ihrer Metamorphose noch einmal so groß beißt, als die weibliche, um Raum für die künftigen Hörner zu gewinnen. Ueberhaupt also giebt uns der Instinkt der Thiere die beste Erläuterung zur übrigen Teleologie der Natur. Denn wie der Instinkt ein Handeln ist, gleich dem nach einem Zweckbegriff, und doch ganz ohne denselben; so ist alles Bilden der Natur gleich dem nach einem Zweckbegriff, und doch ganz ohne denselben. Denn in der äußern, wie in der innern Teleologie der Natur ist, was wir als Mittel und Zweck denken müssen, überall nur die für unsere Erkenntnißweise in Raum und Zeit auseinandergetretene Erscheinung der Einheit des mit sich selbst soweit übereinstimmenden einen Willens.

Inzwischen kann das aus dieser Einheit entspringende sich wechselseitige Anpassen und Sichbequemen der Erscheinungen dennoch nicht den oben dargestellten, im allgemeinen Kampf der Natur erscheinenden innern Widerstreit tilgen, der dem Willen wesentlich ist. Jene Harmonie geht nur so weit, daß sie den Bestand der Welt und ihrer Wesen möglich macht, welche daher ohne sie längst untergegangen wären. Daher erstreckt sie sich nur auf den Bestand der Species und der allgemeinen Lebensbedingungen, nicht aber auf den der Individuen. Wenn demnach, vermöge jener Harmonie und Akkomodation, die Species im Organischen und die allgemeinen Naturkräfte im Unorganischen neben einander bestehen, sogar sich wechselseitig unterstützen; so zeigt sich dagegen der innere Widerstreit des durch alle jene Ideen objektivirten Willens im unaufhörlichen Vertilgungskriege der Individuen jener Species und im beständigen Ringen der Erscheinungen jener Naturkräfte mit einander, wie oben ausgeführt worden. Der Tummelplatz und der Gegenstand dieses Kampfs ist die Materie, welche sie wechselseitig einander zu entreißen streben, wie auch Raum und Zeit, deren Vereinigung durch die Form der Kausalität eigentlich die Materie ist, wie im ersten Buche dargethan³⁰.

31 Chatin, sur la Valisneria spiralis, in den Comptes rendus de l'acad. d. sc., Nr. 13, 1855.

32 Hiezu Kap. 26 u. 27 des zweiten Bandes.

29 Ich beschließe hier den zweiten Haupttheil meiner Darstellung, in der Hoffnung, daß, soweit es bei der allerersten Mittheilung eines noch nie dagewesenen Gedankens, der daher von den Spuren der Individualität, in welcher zuerst er sich erzeugte, nicht ganz frei seyn kann, — möglich ist, es mir gelungen sei, die deutliche Gewißheit mitzutheilen, daß diese Welt, in der wir leben und sind, ihrem ganzen Wesen nach, durch und durch Wille und zugleich durch und durch Vorstellung ist; daß diese Vorstellung schon als solche eine Form voraussetzt, nämlich Objekt und Subjekt, mithin relativ ist; und wenn wir fragen, was nach Aufhebung dieser Form und aller ihr untergeordneten, die der Satz vom Grund ausdrückt, noch übrig bleibt; dieses als ein von der Vorstellung toto genere Verschiedenes, nichts Anderes seyn kann, als Wille, der sonach das eigentliche Ding an sich ist. Jeder findet sich selbst als diesen Willen, in welchem das innere Wesen der Welt besteht, so wie er sich auch als das erkennende Subjekt findet, dessen Vorstellung die ganze Welt ist, welche insofern nur in Bezug auf sein Bewußtseyn, als ihren nothwendigen Träger, ein Daseyn hat. Jeder ist also in diesem doppelten Betracht die ganze Welt selbst, der Mikrokosmos, findet beide Seiten derselben ganz und vollständig in sich selbst. Und was er so als sein eigenes Wesen erkennt, dasselbe erschöpft auch das Wesen der ganzen Welt, des Makrokosmos: auch sie also ist, wie er selbst, durch und durch Wille, und durch und durch Vorstellung, und nichts bleibt weiter übrig. So sehen wir hier die Philosophie des Thales, die den Makrokosmos, und die des Sokrates, die den Mikrokosmos betrachtete, zusammenfallen, indem das Objekt beider sich als das Selbe aufweist. — Größere Vollständigkeit aber und dadurch auch größere Sicherheit wird die gesammte in den zwei ersten Büchern mitgetheilte Erkenntniß gewinnen, durch die noch folgenden zwei Bücher, in denen hoffentlich auch manche Frage, welche bei unserer bisherigen Betrachtung deutlich oder undeutlich sich aufgeworfen haben mag, ihre genügende Antwort finden wird.

Inzwischen mag eine solche Frage noch eigens erörtert werden, da sie eigentlich nur aufgeworfen werden kann, solange man noch nicht ganz in den Sinn der bisherigen Darstellung eingedrungen ist, und eben insofern zur Erläuterung derselben dienen kann. Es ist folgende. Jeder Wille ist Wille nach Etwas, hat ein Objekt, ein Ziel seines Wollens: was will denn zuletzt, oder wonach strebt jener Wille, der uns als das Wesen an sich der Welt dargestellt wird? — Diese Frage beruht, wie so viele andere, auf Verwechselung des Dinges an sich mit der Erscheinung. Auf diese allein, nicht auf jenes erstreckt sich der Satz vom Grunde, dessen Gestaltung auch das Gesetz der Motivation ist. Ueberall läßt sich nur von Erscheinungen als solchen, von einzelnen Dingen, ein Grund angeben, nie vom Willen selbst, noch von der Idee, in der er sich adäquat objektivirt. So ist von jeder einzelnen Bewegung, oder überhaupt Veränderung in der Natur, eine Ursache zu suchen, d. h. ein Zustand, welcher diese nothwendig herbeiführte; nie aber von der Naturkraft selbst, die sich in jener und in unzähligen gleichen Erscheinungen offenbart: und es ist daher wahrer Unverstand, aus Mangel an Besonnenheit entsprungen, wenn gefragt wird nach einer Ursache der Schwere, der Elektricität u. s. w. Nur etwan, wenn man dargethan hätte, daß Schwere, Elektricität, nicht ursprüngliche eigenthümliche Naturkräfte, sondern nur Erscheinungsweisen einer allgemeineren, schon bekannten Naturkraft wären, ließe sich fragen nach der Ursache, welche macht, daß diese Naturkraft hier die Erscheinung der Schwere, der Elektricität, hervorbringe. Alles Dieses ist oben weitläufig auseinandergesetzt. Ebenso nun hat jeder einzelne Willensakt eines erkennenden Individuums (welches selbst nur Erscheinung des Willens als Dinges an sich ist) nothwendig ein Motiv, ohne welches jener Akt nie einträte: aber wie die materielle Ursache bloß die Bestimmung enthält, daß zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort, an dieser Materie, eine Aeußerung dieser oder jener Naturkraft eintreten muß; so bestimmt auch das Motiv nur den Willensakt eines erkennenden Wesens, zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort, unter diesen Umständen, als ein ganz Einzelnes; keineswegs aber daß jenes Wesen überhaupt will und auf diese Weise will: dies ist Aeußerung seines intelligibeln Charakters, der, als der Wille selbst, das Ding an sich, grundlos ist, als außer dem Gebiet des Satzes vom Grunde liegend. Daher hat auch jeder Mensch beständig Zwecke und Motive, nach denen er sein Handeln leitet, und weiß von seinem einzelnen Thun allezeit Rechenschaft zu geben: aber wenn man ihn fragte, warum er überhaupt will, oder warum er überhaupt daseyn will; so würde er keine Antwort haben, vielmehr würde ihm die Frage ungereimt erscheinen: und hierin eben spräche sich eigentlich das Bewußtseyn aus, daß er selbst nichts, als Wille ist, dessen Wollen überhaupt sich also von selbst versteht und nur in seinen einzelnen Akten, für jeden Zeitpunkt, der nähern Bestimmung durch Motive bedarf.

In der That gehört Abwesenheit alles Zieles, aller Gränzen, zum Wesen des Willens an sich, der ein endloses Streben ist. Dies wurde bereits oben, bei Erwähnung der Centrifugalkraft berührt: auch offenbart es sich am einfachsten auf der allerniedrigsten Stufe der Objektität des Willens, nämlich in der Schwere, deren beständiges Streben, bei offenbarer Unmöglichkeit eines letzten Zieles, vor Augen liegt. Denn wäre auch, nach ihrem Willen, alle existirende Materie in einen Klumpen vereinigt; so würde im Innern desselben die Schwere, zum Mittelpunkte strebend, noch immer mit der Undurchdringlichkeit, als Starrheit oder Elasticität, kämpfen. Das Streben der Materie kann daher stets nur gehemmt, nie und nimmer erfüllt oder befriedigt werden. So aber gerade verhält es sich mit allem Streben aller Erscheinungen des Willens. Jedes erreichte Ziel ist wieder Anfang einer neuen Laufbahn, und so ins Unendliche. Die Pflanze erhöht ihre Erscheinung vom Keim durch Stamm und Blatt zur Blüthe und Frucht, welche wieder nur der Anfang eines neuen Keimes ist, eines neuen Individuums, das abermals die alte Bahn durchläuft, und so durch unendliche Zeit. Ebenso ist der Lebenslauf des Thieres: die Zeugung ist der Gipfel desselben, nach dessen Erreichung das Leben des ersten Individuums schnell oder langsam sinkt, während ein neues der Natur die Erhaltung der Species verbürgt und die selbe Erscheinung wiederholt. Ja, als die bloße Erscheinung dieses beständigen Dranges und Wechsels ist auch die stete Erneuerung der Materie jedes Organismus anzusehen, welche die Physiologen jetzt aufhören für nothwendigen Ersatz des bei der Bewegung verbrauchten Stoffes zu halten, da die mögliche Abnutzung der Maschine durchaus kein Aequivalent seyn kann für den beständigen Zufluß durch die Ernährung:

ewiges Werden, endloser Fluß, gehört zur Offenbarung des Wesens des Willens. Das Selbe zeigt sich endlich auch in den menschlichen Bestrebungen und Wünschen, welche ihre Erfüllung immer als letztes Ziel des Wollens uns vorgaukeln; sobald sie aber erreicht sind, sich nicht mehr ähnlich sehen und daher bald vergessen, antiquirt und eigentlich immer, wenn gleich nicht eingeständlich, als verschwundene Täuschungen bei Seite gelegt werden; glücklich genug, wenn noch etwas zu wünschen und zu streben übrig blieb, damit das Spiel des steten Ueberganges vom Wunsch zur Befriedigung und von dieser zum neuen Wunsch, dessen rascher Gang Glück, der langsame Leiden heißt, unterhalten werde, und nicht in jenes Stocken gerathe, das sich als furchtbare, lebenserstarrende Langeweile, mattes Sehnen ohne bestimmtes Objekt, ertödtender languor zeigt. — Diesem allen zufolge, weiß der Wille, wo ihn Erkenntniß beleuchtet, stets was er jetzt, was er hier will; nie aber was er überhaupt will: jeder einzelne Akt hat einen Zweck; das gesammte Wollen keinen: eben wie jede einzelne Naturerscheinung zu ihrem Eintritt an diesem Ort, zu dieser Zeit, durch eine zureichende Ursache bestimmt wird, nicht aber die in ihr sich manifestirende Kraft überhaupt eine Ursache hat, da solche Erscheinungsstufe des Dinges an sich, des grundlosen Willens ist. — Die einzige Selbsterkenntniß des Willens im Ganzen aber ist die Vorstellung im Ganzen, die gesammte anschauliche Welt. Sie ist seine Objektität, seine Offenbarung, sein Spiegel. Was sie in dieser Eigenschaft aussagt, wird der Gegenstand unserer fernern Betrachtung seyn [33].

34 Hiezu Kap. 28 des zweiten Bandes.

Musean translation

Mouseia's complete machine-assisted Musean translation of the three prefaces, the four books with paragraphs 1 to 71, and the appendix on Kant, made directly from the corrected German text of the third edition (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1859), with the printed page consulted wherever a reading was in doubt. Footnote numbers are this edition's own, assigned in reading order, so note calls and the notes they point to can differ; a few notes the scan cut short end where the printed page ends.

First Consideration of the World as Will: The Objectification of the Will.

Nos habitat, non tartara, sed nec sidera coeli: Spiritus, in nobis qui viget, illa facit.

17 In the first book we considered representation only as such, and so only according to its universal form. As for abstract representation, the concept, we did indeed come to know it in its content as well, in so far as it has all content and meaning solely through its relation to the intuitive representation, without which it would be worthless and empty. Referred thus wholly to the intuitive representation, we shall want to learn its content too, its closer determinations, and the shapes it sets before us. Above all it will matter to us to obtain an elucidation of its real meaning, that meaning of it which is otherwise only felt, by virtue of which these images do not, as they otherwise must, pass before us wholly strange and meaningless, but speak to us directly, are understood, and acquire an interest that lays claim to our whole being.

We turn our gaze to mathematics, natural science and philosophy, each of which lets us hope that it will give a part of the elucidation we desire.—But first of all we find philosophy a monster with many heads, each of which speaks a different language. They are not, to be sure, all at odds with one another on the point raised here, the meaning of that intuitive representation: for, with the exception of the skeptics and idealists, the others speak, in the main, fairly consistently of an object that is supposed to underlie the representation, one that is indeed different from the representation in its whole being and essence, yet in all respects as like it as one egg is to another. But this will not help us: for we do not know how to distinguish such an object from the representation at all; we find, rather, that the two are only one and the same, since every object always and forever presupposes a subject and therefore remains representation; as we have, indeed, recognized being-an-object as belonging to the most universal form of representation, which is precisely the splitting into object and subject. Moreover, the principle of sufficient reason, on which people rely here, is likewise for us only a form of representation, namely the lawful connection of one representation with another, but not the connection of the whole series of representations, finite or endless, with something that would not be representation at all, and therefore cannot even be represented.—Of the skeptics and idealists, however, we spoke above, in discussing the dispute over the reality of the external world.

If now, for the closer knowledge we desire of that intuitive representation, which has become known to us only quite generally, according to its mere form, we turn to mathematics, it will speak to us of those representations only in so far as they fill time and space, that is, in so far as they are magnitudes. It will state the how-many and the how-great with the greatest exactness: but since this is always only relative, that is, a comparison of one representation with others, and indeed only in that one-sided respect of magnitude, this too will not be the information we mainly seek.

If we look, finally, at the wide domain of natural science, divided into many fields, we can first distinguish two main divisions of it. It is either description of shapes, which I call morphology, or explanation of changes, which I call etiology. The former considers the abiding forms, the latter the changing matter, according to the laws of its passage from one form into another. The former is what is called natural history, though improperly, in its whole extent: as botany and zoology in particular it makes us acquainted with the different organic shapes, abiding amid the ceaseless change of individuals and thereby firmly determined, which make up a great part of the content of intuitive representation: it classifies them, separates and unites them, arranges them in natural and artificial systems, and brings them under concepts which make an overview and knowledge of them all possible. There is further demonstrated an analogy among them, running through all and infinitely nuanced, in the whole and in the parts (unité de plan), by virtue of which they resemble very manifold variations on a theme that is not given. The passage of matter into those shapes, that is, the origin of individuals, is no main part of the inquiry, since every individual proceeds from one like itself through generation, which, everywhere equally mysterious, has so far eluded clear knowledge: the little that is known of it, however, finds its place in physiology, which already belongs to etiological natural science. Mineralogy, which belongs in the main to morphology, also already inclines toward this, especially where it becomes geology. Etiology proper comprises all those branches of natural science in which knowledge of cause and effect is the main thing: these teach how, according to an unfailing rule, one state of matter is necessarily followed by a certain other; how a certain change necessarily conditions and brings about another, definite one: which demonstration is called explanation. Here we find chiefly mechanics, physics, chemistry, physiology.

But when we give ourselves up to their instruction, we soon become aware that the information we chiefly seek is no more vouchsafed us by etiology than by morphology. The latter sets before us countless shapes, infinitely manifold and yet related by an unmistakable family likeness, which for us are representations that on this path remain eternally strange, and, if considered only in this way, stand before us like uncomprehended hieroglyphs.—Etiology, on the other hand, teaches us that, according to the law of cause and effect, this particular state of matter brings about that other, and with that it has explained it and done its part. In reality, however, it does nothing more than demonstrate the lawful order in which the states occur in space and time, and teach for all cases which appearance must necessarily occur at this time, in this place: it thus assigns them their position in time and space, according to a law whose definite content experience has taught, but whose universal form and necessity we are conscious of independently of it. About the inner essence of any one of those appearances, however, we obtain thereby not the slightest elucidation: this is called a natural force, and lies outside the domain of etiological explanation, which calls the unchanging constancy with which the manifestation of such a force occurs, whenever the conditions known to it are present, a law of nature. This law of nature, these conditions, this occurrence in respect of a definite place at a definite time, are, however, all that etiology knows and can ever know. The force itself that manifests itself, the inner essence of the appearances occurring according to those laws, remains to it eternally a secret, something wholly strange and unknown, in the simplest appearance as in the most complex. For although etiology has so far achieved its aim most completely in mechanics and least completely in physiology, yet the force by virtue of which a stone falls to the ground, or one body pushes another away, is, in its inner essence, no less strange and mysterious to us than that which produces the movements and growth of an animal. Mechanics presupposes matter, gravity, impenetrability, communicability of motion by impact, rigidity and so on as unfathomable, calls them natural forces, calls their necessary and regular appearance under certain conditions a law of nature, and only then begins its explanation, which consists in stating faithfully and with mathematical exactness how, where and when each force manifests itself, and in referring every appearance that comes before it back to one of those forces. Physics, chemistry and physiology do the same in their own domains, except that they presuppose far more and achieve less. Accordingly even the most perfect etiological explanation of the whole of nature would really never be more than a catalogue of inexplicable forces, and a sure statement of the rule by which their appearances occur in time and space, succeed one another, and make way for one another: but the inner essence of the forces that thus appear it would have to leave always unexplained, because the law it follows does not lead to this, and it would have to stop at the appearance and its order. In this respect it could be compared to a section cut through marble, which shows many veins side by side, but does not let us trace the course of those veins in the interior of the marble up to that surface. Or if I may allow myself a jesting comparison, because it is more striking—with the etiology of the whole of nature completed, the philosophical inquirer would still have to feel always like someone who, without knowing how, has fallen into a company wholly unknown to him, whose members, one after another, present each other to him as friend and cousin, and so make him sufficiently acquainted: but he himself, while assuring each person presented, every time, of his pleasure, has the question constantly on his lips: “But how the devil did I come to be in this whole company?”

Thus etiology too can never give us, regarding those appearances which we know only as our representations, the desired elucidation that would lead us beyond them. For after all its explanations they still stand before us wholly strange, as mere representations whose meaning we do not understand. The causal connection gives only the rule and the relative order of their occurrence in space and time, but does not teach us to know more closely what thus occurs. Moreover, the law of causality itself holds only for representations, for objects of a certain class, under whose presupposition alone it has meaning: it is, therefore, like these objects themselves, always there only in relation to the subject, and so conditionally; which is why it is known just as well when one starts from the subject, that is, a priori, as when one starts from the object, that is, a posteriori, as Kant has taught us.

But what now drives us to inquiry is precisely that it does not satisfy us to know that we have representations, that they are such and such, and are connected according to these and those laws, whose universal expression is always the principle of sufficient reason. We want to know the meaning of that representation: we ask whether this world is nothing more than representation; in which case it would have to pass before us like an insubstantial dream, or a ghostly aerial structure, not worth our notice; or whether it is something else besides, something more, and what that then may be. So much is equally certain, that what is asked after must be something wholly and in its whole nature fundamentally different from representation, to which therefore its forms and its laws must be wholly foreign; that from representation, therefore, one cannot arrive at it along the guiding thread of those laws which connect only objects, representations, with one another; which are the forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

We see already here that the essence of things can never be got at from without: however one may inquire, one wins nothing but images and names. One is like a man who walks around a castle, seeking an entrance in vain and meanwhile sketching the facades. And yet this is the path that all philosophers before me have taken.

18 In fact, the meaning that is being sought of the world, which stands over against me solely as my representation, or the passage from it, as mere representation of the knowing subject, to whatever else it may be besides, would never be found if the inquirer himself were nothing more than the purely knowing subject (a winged angel’s head without a body). But as it is, he is himself rooted in that world; that is, he finds himself in it as an individual, which means that his knowledge, the conditioning supporter of the whole world as representation, is nevertheless mediated throughout by a body, whose affections, as has been shown, are for the understanding the starting point of the intuition of that world. For the purely knowing subject as such, this body is a representation like any other, an object among objects: its movements, its actions, are known to him thus far in no other way than as the changes of all other intuitive objects, and would be just as strange and incomprehensible to him if their meaning were not perhaps unriddled for him in a wholly different way. Otherwise he would see his acting follow upon presented motives with the constancy of a law of nature, just as the changes of other objects follow upon causes, stimuli, motives. But he would understand the influence of motives no more closely than the connection of any other effect that appears to him with its cause. He would then call the inner essence of those manifestations and actions of his body, which is incomprehensible to him, a force, a quality, or a character, as he pleased, but have no further insight into it. But none of this is so: rather, to the subject of knowing, who appears as individual, the word of the riddle is given: and this word is will. This, and this alone, gives him the key to his own appearance, reveals to him the meaning, shows him the inner workings of his essence, his doing, his movements. To the subject of knowing, who comes forward as individual through his identity with the body, this body is given in two wholly different ways: once as representation in the intuition of the understanding, as an object among objects, subject to the laws of these; but then also at the same time in a wholly different way, namely as that which is immediately known to everyone, and which the word will designates. Every true act of his will is at once and inevitably also a movement of his body: he cannot really will the act without at the same time perceiving that it appears as a movement of the body. The act of will and the action of the body are not two different states, objectively cognized, which the bond of causality connects; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same, only given in two wholly different ways: once quite immediately, and once in intuition for the understanding. The action of the body is nothing other than the objectified act of will, that is, the act of will entered into intuition. It will be shown to us further on that this holds of every movement of the body, not merely of the movement following upon motives, but also of the involuntary movement following upon mere stimuli; indeed, that the whole body is nothing other than the objectified will, that is, will become representation; all of which will emerge and become clear in the sequel. I shall therefore call the body, which in the previous book and in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, from the standpoint deliberately taken there one-sidedly (that of representation), I named the immediate object, here, in another respect, the objectivity of the will. Hence one can also say in a certain sense: the will is the knowledge a priori of the body, and the body is the knowledge a posteriori of the will.—Resolutions of the will that relate to the future are mere deliberations of reason about what one will some day will, not real acts of will: only the execution stamps the decision, which until then is always still a changeable intention and exists only in reason, in abstracto. In reflection alone are willing and doing different: in reality they are one. Every true, genuine, immediate act of will is at once and immediately also an appearing act of the body: and correspondingly, on the other hand, every influence upon the body is at once and immediately also an influence upon the will: as such it is called pain when it is contrary to the will; well-being, pleasure, when it is in accord with it. The gradations of both are very various. But one is wholly mistaken in calling pain and pleasure representations: they are by no means that, but immediate affections of the will in its appearance, the body: a compelled, momentary willing or not-willing of the impression which the body suffers. Only certain few impressions on the body, which do not stir the will, and through which alone the body is immediate object of knowing, since as intuition in the understanding it is already mediate object, like all others, are to be regarded immediately as mere representations, and therefore to be excepted from what has just been said. What is meant here are the affections of the purely objective senses, sight, hearing and touch, though only so far as these organs are affected in the manner specially proper to them, specific and natural, which is so extremely weak a stimulation of the heightened and specifically modified sensibility of these parts that it does not affect the will; but, undisturbed by any stirring of it, merely furnishes the understanding with the data from which intuition arises. Every stronger or different kind of affection of those sense organs is, however, painful, that is, contrary to the will, to whose objectivity therefore they too belong.—Weakness of the nerves shows itself in this, that impressions which should have only the degree of strength sufficient to make them data for the understanding reach the higher degree at which they move the will, that is, arouse pain or a feeling of well-being, though more often pain, which is, however, partly dull and indistinct, and so makes not only single tones and strong light felt as painful, but also in general occasions a morbid hypochondriacal mood without being distinctly recognized.—Further, the identity of body and will shows itself, among other things, also in this, that every violent and excessive movement of the will, that is, every emotion, shakes the body and its inner workings quite immediately and disturbs the course of its vital functions. This is found set out specifically in the “Will in Nature,” p. 27 of the second edition.

Finally, the knowledge I have of my will, though an immediate one, is yet not to be separated from that of my body. I know my will not as a whole, not as a unity, not completely according to its essence, but I know it only in its single acts, thus in time, which is the form of appearance of my body, as of every object: hence the body is the condition of the knowledge of my will. This will without my body, then, I cannot really represent. In the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, to be sure, the will, or rather the subject of willing, is set up as a particular class of representations or objects: but already there we saw this object coincide with the subject, that is, cease to be object: we called this coinciding there the miracle κατ’ εξοχην: in a certain sense the whole present work is the explanation of it.—Insofar as I really know my will as object, I know it as body: but then I am again at the first class of representations set up in that treatise, that is, at real objects. We shall see more and more in the further course that this first class of representations finds its elucidation, its unriddling, precisely only in the fourth class set up there, which no longer really wished to stand over against the subject as an object; and that we must, correspondingly, learn to understand, from the law of motivation governing the fourth class, the inner essence of the law of causality valid in the first class, and of what happens in accordance with it.

The identity of will and body now provisionally set forth can only be demonstrated, as has been done here for the first time and as is to be done more and more in the further course, that is, raised out of immediate consciousness, out of knowledge in concreto, into knowledge of reason, or transferred into knowledge in abstracto: on the other hand, by its nature it can never be proved, that is, derived as mediate knowledge from another, more immediate knowledge, precisely because it is itself the most immediate, and unless we grasp it and hold it fast as such, we shall wait in vain to get it back mediately, as derived knowledge. It is a knowledge of quite its own kind, whose truth for this very reason cannot even be placed under any of the four rubrics into which, in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, § 29 ff., I divided all truth, namely the logical, empirical, metaphysical, and metalogical: for it is not, like all those, the relation of an abstract representation to another representation, or to the necessary form of intuitive or of abstract representing; but it is the relation of a judgment to the relationship which an intuitive representation, the body, has to that which is not representation at all, but something toto genere different from it: will. I should therefore like to distinguish this truth above all others, and to call it κατ’ εξοχην the philosophical truth. The expression of it can be turned in various ways, and one can say: my body and my will are one;—or, what I call my body as intuitive representation, I call my will in so far as I am conscious of it in a wholly different way, comparable to no other;—or, my body is the objectivity of my will;—or, setting aside that my body is my representation, it is otherwise only my will; and so on [1].

19 If in the first book we declared, with inner reluctance, our own body, like all the other objects of this intuitive world, to be mere representation of the knowing subject, it has now become clear to us what it is that distinguishes, in everyone’s consciousness, the representation of his own body from all other representations, which are otherwise quite like it: namely this, that the body occurs in consciousness in still another way, toto genere different, which is designated by the word will; and that precisely this twofold knowledge that we have of our own body gives us, about the body itself, about its acting and moving on motives, as also about its suffering through outward influence, in a word about what it is, not as representation, but besides, that is, in itself, that elucidation which we do not have immediately about the essence, acting and suffering of all other real objects.

The knowing subject is an individual precisely through this particular relation to the one body, which, considered apart from that relation, is for it only a representation like all the rest. But the relation by virtue of which the knowing subject is individual is, for that very reason, only between it and a single one among all its representations, which is why it is conscious of this single one not merely as a representation but at the same time in quite another way, namely as a will. But since, when it abstracts from that particular relation, from that twofold and wholly heterogeneous knowledge of the one and the same thing, that one, the body, is a representation like all others: in order to orient itself on this point, the knowing individual must either assume that what distinguishes that one representation lies merely in this, that its knowledge stands in this double relation only to that one representation, that only into this one intuitive object is insight open to it in two [2] On this see chap. 18 of the second volume. ways at once, and that this is to be explained not by a difference of this object from all others but only by a difference of the relation of its knowledge to this one object from that which it has to all others; or else it must assume that this one object is essentially different from all others, that it alone among all is at once will and representation, whereas the rest are mere representation, that is, mere phantoms, so that its body is the only real individual in the world, that is, the only appearance of will and the only immediate object of the subject.—That the other objects, considered as mere representations, are like its body, that is, like it fill space (itself possibly present only as representation), and like it too act in space, this is indeed demonstrably certain, from the law of causality, which is certain a priori for representations and admits no effect without cause: but, apart from the fact that from the effect one can infer only a cause in general, not a like cause, one is with this still within the domain of mere representation, for which alone the law of causality holds, and beyond which it can never lead. Whether the objects known to the individual only as representations are nevertheless, like his own body, appearances of a will, is, as was already stated in the previous book, the real sense of the question about the reality of the external world: to deny this is the sense of theoretical egoism, which for that very reason holds all appearances apart from its own individual to be phantoms, just as practical egoism does exactly the same in a practical respect, namely regards and treats only its own person as really such, but all others as mere phantoms. Theoretical egoism can never be refuted by proofs: yet it has certainly never been used in philosophy otherwise than as a skeptical sophism, that is, for show. As serious conviction, on the other hand, it could be found only in the madhouse: as such it would then need not so much a proof against it as a cure. We therefore do not engage with it any further here, but regard it only as the last stronghold of skepticism, which is always polemical.

If our knowledge, then, being always bound to individuality and having precisely in this its limitation, necessarily brings with it that each can be only one thing, while he can know everything else, a limitation which is really what generates the need for philosophy; then we, who for that very reason strive by means of philosophy to extend the limits of our knowledge, shall regard the skeptical argument of theoretical egoism that confronts us here as a small frontier fortress, which is indeed forever impregnable, but whose garrison also can never get out of it, so that one may pass it by and leave it without danger at one’s back.

We shall accordingly use the double cognition, now raised to distinctness and given in two wholly heterogeneous ways, which we have of the essence and action of our own body, henceforth as a key to the essence of every appearance in nature, and judge all objects that are not our own body, which therefore are given to our consciousness not in a double way but solely as representations, by analogy with that body, and therefore assume that, as on the one hand they are, quite like it, representation, and in this homogeneous with it, so also on the other hand, if one sets aside their existence as representation of the subject, what then remains over must be, in its inner essence, the same as what we call will in ourselves. For what other kind of existence or reality should we ascribe to the rest of the corporeal world? From where take the elements out of which we would compose such a reality? Besides will and representation nothing at all is known to us, nor conceivable. If we want to ascribe to the corporeal world, which exists immediately only in our representation, the greatest reality known to us, then we give it the reality which for each person his own body has: for that is the most real thing to each. But if we now analyze the reality of this body and of its actions, we find in it, beyond its being our representation, nothing but will: with that, even its reality is exhausted. We can therefore find nowhere any other reality to ascribe to the corporeal world. If, then, the corporeal world is to be something more than merely our representation, we must say that outside representation, thus in itself and in its innermost essence, it is that which we find in ourselves immediately as will. I say, in its innermost essence: but this essence of the will we must first come to know more closely, so that we may know how to distinguish from it what belongs not to it itself but already to its appearance, which has many degrees: of such a kind is, for example, its being accompanied by cognition and the determination by motives conditioned thereby: this belongs, as we shall see in further progress, not to its essence but merely to its distinct appearance as animal and man. If I therefore say: the force that drives the stone to the earth is, in its essence, in itself and apart from all representation, will; one will not read into this statement the mad opinion that the stone moves according to a cognized motive because in man the will appears thus³.—But now we wish to demonstrate more fully and clearly, to ground, and to develop in its whole compass, what has so far been set forth provisionally and in general⁴.

20 As the essence in itself of one’s own body, as that which this body is besides being object of intuition, representation, the will, as was said, first of all makes itself known in the voluntary movements of this body, insofar, namely, as these are nothing other than the visibility of the individual acts of will, with which they enter immediately and wholly simultaneously, [5] We shall therefore by no means agree with Bacon of Verulam when he opines (de augm. scient. L. 4 in fine) that all mechanical and physical movements of bodies took place only after a preceding perception in these bodies; although a presentiment of the truth also gave this false proposition its existence. It is the same with Kepler’s assertion, in his treatise de planeta Martis, that the planets must have cognition in order to hit their elliptical orbits so exactly and to measure the swiftness of their motion so that the triangle of the area of their orbit always remains proportional to the time in which they traverse its base.

6 On this see Chap. 19 of the second volume. as one and the same with them, distinguished from them only by the form of knowability into which they have passed, that is, become representation.

These acts of will, however, still have a ground outside themselves, in the motives. Yet these never determine more than what I will at this time, in this place, under these circumstances; not that I will in general, nor what I will in general, that is, the maxim that characterizes my willing as a whole. Hence my willing is not to be explained in its whole essence from the motives; rather these determine merely its manifestation at the given moment, are merely the occasion at which my will shows itself: this itself, on the other hand, lies outside the domain of the law of motivation: only its appearance at each moment is necessarily determined by this. Only on the presupposition of my empirical character is the motive a sufficient ground of explanation of my acting: but if I abstract from my character and then ask why I in general will this and not that, no answer to it is possible, because only the appearance of the will is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, not the will itself, which in this respect is to be called groundless. Here I presuppose partly Kant’s doctrine of the empirical and intelligible character, as well as my discussions bearing on this in the “Fundamental Problems of Ethics,” pp. 48–58, and again p. 178 ff. of the first edition, and partly we shall have to speak of it more fully in the fourth book. For now I have only to point out that the groundedness of one appearance by another, here that of the deed by the motive, does not conflict at all with its essence in itself being will, which itself has no ground, since the principle of sufficient reason, in all its forms, is merely form of cognition, and its validity therefore extends only to the representation, the appearance, the visibility of the will, not to the will itself that becomes visible.

If now every action of my body is the appearance of an act of will, in which, under given motives, my will itself in general and as a whole, that is, my character, expresses itself anew; then the indispensable condition and presupposition of that action must also be appearance of the will: for its appearing cannot depend on anything that is not immediately and solely through it, which would therefore be only contingent for it, whereby its appearing itself would become only contingent: but that condition is the whole body itself. This body itself, then, must already be appearance of the will, and must be related to my will as a whole, that is, to my intelligible character, whose appearance in time is my empirical character, as the single action of the body is related to the single act of will. The whole body, therefore, must be nothing other than my will become visible, must be my will itself, insofar as this is an object of intuition, representation of the first class.—In confirmation of this it has already been adduced that every influence on my body immediately and at once also affects my will, and in this respect is called pain or sensual pleasure, in a lower degree agreeable or disagreeable sensation, and also that, conversely, every violent movement of the will, thus affect and passion, shakes the body and disturbs the course of its functions.—It is true that, though very imperfectly, an account of the origin, and somewhat better of the development and maintenance, of my body can also be given etiologically, which is just physiology: but this explains its theme exactly as the motives explain action. As little, therefore, as the grounding of the individual action by the motive and its necessary consequence from this conflicts with the action’s being, in general and in its essence, only the appearance of a will in itself groundless; just as little does the physiological explanation of the functions of the body detract from the philosophical truth that the whole existence of this body and the entire series of its functions is only the objectification of that very will which appears in the external actions of the same body according to the measure of the motives. Physiology indeed seeks to trace even these external actions, the immediately voluntary movements, to causes in the organism, for example to explain the movement of the muscle from an influx of fluids (“like the contraction of a rope that gets wet,” says Reil in his Archiv für Physiologie, vol. 6, p. 153): but supposing one really arrived at a thorough explanation of this kind, this would still never cancel the immediately certain truth that every voluntary movement (functiones animales) is appearance of an act of will. Just as little, now, can the physiological explanation of vegetative life (functiones naturales, vitales), however far it may advance, ever cancel the truth that this whole animal life, thus developing, is itself appearance of the will. In general, as was explained above, every etiological explanation can never give more than the necessarily determined place in time and space of a single appearance, its necessary entrance there according to a fixed rule: the inner essence of every appearance, on the other hand, remains by this path always unfathomable, and is presupposed by every etiological explanation and merely designated by the names force, or law of nature, or, when actions are in question, character, will.—Although, then, every single action, on the presupposition of the determinate character, follows necessarily when the motive is presented, and although growth, the process of nutrition and all the changes in the animal body proceed according to necessarily acting causes (stimuli); yet the whole series of actions, consequently each single one, and likewise their condition, the whole body itself that performs them, consequently also the process through which and in which it subsists—is nothing other than the appearance of the will, the becoming visible, the objectivity of the will. On this rests the perfect suitability of the human and animal body to the human and animal will in general, similar to, but far surpassing, that which a deliberately made tool has to the will of its maker, and appearing on this account as purposiveness, that is, the teleological explicability of the body. The parts of the body must therefore correspond perfectly to the principal desires through which the will manifests itself, must be the visible expression of them: teeth, throat and intestinal canal are objectified hunger; the genitals objectified sexual impulse; the grasping hands, the swift feet correspond to the already more mediate striving of the will which they represent. As the universal human form corresponds to the universal human will, so to the individually modified will, the character of the individual, corresponds the individual embodiment, which is therefore throughout and in all its parts characteristic and expressive. It is very remarkable that Parmenides already expressed this, in the following verses cited by Aristotle (Metaph. III, 5):

21 Whoever has now, through all these reflections, gained also in abstracto, hence clearly and surely, the cognition which everyone possesses in concreto immediately, that is, as feeling, that the essence in itself of his own appearance, which presents itself to him as representation both through his actions and through the abiding substratum of these, his body, is his will, which constitutes the most immediate element of his consciousness, but as such has not wholly entered into the form of representation in which object and subject stand opposite each other; but makes itself known in an immediate way, in which one does not quite distinctly distinguish subject and object, yet also is recognizable to the individual himself not as a whole but only in its single acts:—whoever, I say, has gained with me this conviction, for him it will become, quite of itself, the key to the cognition of the innermost essence of the whole of nature, in that he now also transfers it to all those appearances [8] On this see Chap. 20 of the second volume; as also, in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the headings “Physiology” and “Comparative Anatomy,” where what is here only hinted at has received its thorough treatment. which are given to him not, like his own, in immediate cognition alongside the mediate, but only in the latter, thus only one-sidedly, as representation alone. Not only in those appearances which are quite similar to his own, in men and animals, will he recognize that same will as their innermost essence; but continued reflection will lead him to recognize also the force that drives and vegetates in the plant, indeed the force by which the crystal shoots, that which turns the magnet to the north pole, that whose shock leaps at him from the contact of heterogeneous metals, that which appears in the elective affinities of substances as flying and seeking, separating and uniting, indeed finally even gravity, which strives so mightily in all matter, drawing the stone to the earth and the earth to the sun,—to recognize all these as different only in appearance, but in their inner essence as the same, as that which is known to him immediately so intimately and better than everything else, and which where it appears most distinctly is called will. It is this application of reflection alone that no longer lets us stop at the appearance, but leads us across to the thing in itself. Appearance means representation, and nothing more: all representation, of whatever kind it be, all object, is appearance. The thing in itself, however, is the will alone: as such it is not representation at all, but toto genere different from it: it is that of which all representation, all object, is the appearance, the visibility, the objectivity. It is the innermost, the kernel of every particular and likewise of the whole: it appears in every blindly working force of nature: it also appears in the deliberate conduct of man; the great difference between these two concerns only the degree of the appearing, not the essence of what appears.

22 This thing in itself (we wish to keep the Kantian expression as a standing formula), which as such is never object, precisely because every object is already again its mere appearance, no longer it itself, had, if it was nevertheless to be thought objectively, to borrow name and concept from an object, from something somehow objectively given, consequently from one of its appearances: but this, in order to serve as a point of mutual understanding, could be none other than, among all its appearances, the most perfect, that is, the most distinct, the most fully unfolded, illuminated directly by cognition: but this is precisely the will of man. It must, however, be well noted that we here indeed use only a denominatio a potiori, by which the concept will therefore receives a greater extension than it had hitherto. Cognition of the identical in different appearances and of the different in similar ones is, as Plato so often remarks, precisely the condition of philosophy. But hitherto the identity of the essence of every force striving and acting in nature with the will had not been recognized, and so the manifold appearances, which are only different species of the same genus, were not regarded as such, but considered heterogeneous: for this reason there could also be no word to designate the concept of this genus. I therefore name the genus after its most excellent species, whose nearer, immediate cognition leads to the mediate cognition of all the others. But whoever should be incapable of carrying out the extension of the concept here demanded, and at the word will should always still understand only that one species hitherto alone designated by it, the will guided by cognition and expressing itself exclusively according to motives, indeed perhaps even only according to abstract motives, thus under the guidance of reason, which, as said, is only the most distinct appearance of the will, would remain caught in a perpetual misunderstanding. The innermost essence, immediately known to us, of just this appearance we must now purely separate out in thought, then transfer it to all the weaker, less distinct appearances of the same essence, whereby we carry out the demanded extension of the concept will.—In the opposite way, however, I would be misunderstood by anyone who supposed that it was ultimately all one whether one designated that essence in itself of all appearance by the word will or by some other. This would be the case if that thing in itself were something whose existence we merely inferred and so knew only mediately and merely in abstracto: then one could indeed call it what one pleased: the name would stand as mere sign of an unknown quantity. But now the word will, which is to unlock to us, like a magic word, the innermost essence of every thing in nature, designates by no means an unknown quantity, something reached by inferences; but something known wholly immediately and so well known that we know and understand what will is much better than anything else, whatever it may be.—Hitherto the concept will has been subsumed under the concept force: I, on the contrary, do exactly the reverse and want every force in nature to be thought of as will. Let no one think that this is a quarrel about words, or a matter of indifference: rather it is of the very highest significance and importance. For at the foundation of the concept force, as of all others, lies ultimately the intuitive cognition of the objective world, that is, appearance, representation, and that is where it has been drawn from. It is abstracted from the domain where cause and effect rule, thus from intuitive representation, and means just the being-a-cause of the cause, at the point where it is etiologically not further explicable at all, but is precisely the necessary presupposition of all etiological explanation. The concept will, on the other hand, is the only one among all possible concepts that has its origin not in appearance, not in mere intuitive representation, but comes from within, issues from the most immediate consciousness of each, in which he cognizes his own individual, in its essence, immediately, without any form, even without that of subject and object, and at the same time is it himself, since here the knower and the known coincide. If, therefore, we trace the concept of force back to that of will, we have in fact traced something less known back to something infinitely better known, indeed to the only thing that is really immediately and wholly and entirely known to us, and have extended our cognition very greatly. If, on the other hand, as has hitherto been done, we subsume the concept will under that of force, we renounce the only immediate cognition that we have of the inner essence of the world, by letting it perish in a concept abstracted from the appearance, with which we can therefore never get beyond the appearance.

23 The will as thing in itself is wholly different from its appearance and entirely free from all the forms of it, into which it enters only by appearing, which therefore concern only its objectivity and are foreign to it itself. Already the most general form of all representation, that of the object for a subject, does not touch it; still less those subordinate to this, which all have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which, as is well known, belong also time and space, and consequently also multiplicity, which exists and has become possible only through these. In this last respect I shall, with an expression borrowed from the old, proper Scholasticism, call time and space the principium individuationis, which I ask the reader to note once and for all. For it is time and space alone by means of which what is alike and one in essence and concept nevertheless appears as different, as a multiplicity alongside and after one another: they are consequently the principium individuationis, the object of so many subtleties and disputes of the Scholastics, which one finds brought together in Suarez (Disp. 5, sect. 3).—The will as thing in itself lies, according to what has been said, outside the domain of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently utterly groundless, although each of its appearances is wholly subject to the principle of sufficient reason: it is further free from all multiplicity, although its appearances in time and space are countless: it itself is one: yet not as an object is one, whose unity is cognized only in contrast with possible multiplicity: nor as a concept is one, which has arisen only through abstraction from multiplicity: but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium individuationis, that is, the possibility of multiplicity. Only when all this has become wholly clear to us through the following consideration of the appearances and various manifestations of the will shall we fully understand the sense of Kant’s doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the thing in itself, but are only forms of knowing.

The groundlessness of the will has indeed been recognized where it manifests itself most distinctly, as will of man, and this has been called free, independent. But at once, over the groundlessness of the will itself, the necessity to which its appearance is everywhere subject has also been overlooked, and the deeds have been declared free, which they are not, since every single action follows with strict necessity from the effect of the motive on the character. All necessity is, as already said, relation of the consequent to the ground and absolutely nothing more. The principle of sufficient reason is the universal form of all appearance, and man in his doing must, like every other appearance, be subject to it. But because in self-consciousness the will is cognized immediately and in itself, in this consciousness there lies also the consciousness of freedom. Only it is overlooked that the individual, the person, is not will as thing in itself, but already appearance of the will, as such already determined and entered into the form of appearance, the principle of sufficient reason. Hence comes the strange fact that everyone holds himself a priori to be wholly free, even in his single actions, and thinks he could begin another course of life at any moment, which would mean becoming another. But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subject to necessity, that in spite of all resolves and reflections he does not change his conduct, and from the beginning of his life to the end must carry through the same character, disapproved by himself, and play to the end, as it were, the role he has taken on. I cannot develop this reflection further here, since as ethical it belongs in another place in this work. Here I wish meanwhile only to point out that the appearance of the will, groundless in itself, is nevertheless as such subject to the law of necessity, that is, to the principle of sufficient reason; so that the necessity with which the appearances of nature follow may be no stumbling block to our recognizing in them the manifestations of the will.

Hitherto only those changes have been regarded as appearances of the will that have no other ground than a motive, that is, a representation; hence in nature a will was ascribed only to man and at most to animals; because cognizing, representing, is indeed, as I have already mentioned elsewhere, the genuine and exclusive character of animality. But that the will also works where no cognition guides it we see most immediately in the instinct and the craft impulses of animals⁹. That they have representations and cognition does not come into consideration here at all, since the end toward which they work just as if it were a cognized motive remains wholly unknown to them; hence their acting here takes place without motive, is not guided by representation, and shows us first and most distinctly how the will is active even without any cognition. The one-year-old bird has no representation of the eggs for which it builds a nest; the young spider none of the prey for which it weaves a web; nor the ant-lion of the ant for which it digs a pit for the first time; the larva of the stag beetle gnaws the hole in the wood, in which it will undergo its transformation, twice as large if it is to become a male as if it is to become a female beetle, in the first case to have room for horns, of which it has as yet no representation. In such doing of these animals the will is manifestly active, as in the rest of their doing: but it is in blind activity, which is indeed accompanied by cognition, but not guided by it. Once we have gained the insight that representation as motive is not a necessary and essential condition of the activity of the will, we shall also more easily recognize the working of the will in cases where it is less obvious, and then, for example, will ascribe the house of the snail no more to a will foreign to itself but guided by cognition than the house that we ourselves build comes into existence through a will other than our own; rather we shall recognize both houses as works of the will objectifying itself in both appearances, which in us works according to motives, but in the snail still blindly, as a formative impulse directed outward. In us too the same will works in many ways blindly: in all those functions of our body which no cognition guides, in all its vital and vegetative processes, [10] Chap. 27 of the second volume treats these specially.

digestion, circulation of the blood, secretion, growth, reproduction. Not only the actions of the body, but the body itself wholly and entirely is, as shown above, appearance of the will, objectified will, concrete will: everything that goes on in it must therefore go on through will, although here this will is not guided by cognition, does not determine itself according to motives, but, working blindly, according to causes, which in this case are called stimuli.

By cause, namely, in the narrowest sense of the word, I mean that state of matter which, in bringing about another with necessity, itself undergoes just as great a change as that which it causes, which is expressed by the rule “action and reaction are equal.” Further, in the case of cause proper, the effect grows in exactly the same proportion as the cause, and so likewise the reaction; so that, once the mode of action is known, the degree of the effect can be measured and calculated from the degree of intensity of the cause, and conversely. Causes in this proper sense work in all the appearances of mechanism, chemism, and so on, in short in all changes of inorganic bodies. By stimulus, on the other hand, I mean that cause which itself suffers no reaction proportioned to its effect, and whose intensity does not at all run parallel in degree with the intensity of the effect, which therefore cannot be measured by it: rather a small increase of the stimulus can occasion a very great one in the effect, or conversely wholly cancel the previous effect, and so on. All effect on organic bodies as such is of this kind: it is on stimuli, therefore, not on mere causes, that all properly organic and vegetative changes in the animal body take place. The stimulus, however, like every cause in general, and likewise the motive, never determines more than the point of entrance, in time and space, of the manifestation of each force, not the inner essence of the manifesting force itself, which we, in accordance with our preceding derivation, recognize as will, to which we therefore ascribe both the unconscious and the conscious changes of the body. The stimulus holds the mean, makes the transition between the motive, which is causality that has passed through cognition, and the cause in the narrowest sense. In individual cases it lies now nearer the motive, now nearer the cause, but is still always to be distinguished from both: thus, for example, the rising of sap in plants takes place on stimulus and is not to be explained from mere causes, according to the laws of hydraulics or of capillary tubes: yet it is probably assisted by these and is in general already very near to purely causal change. On the other hand the movements of the Hedysarum gyrans and the Mimosa pudica, although still following on mere stimuli, are nevertheless already very similar to those on motives and seem almost to want to make the transition. The contraction of the pupil with increased light takes place on stimulus, but already passes over into movement on motive; since it takes place because the too strong light would affect the retina painfully and we, to avoid this, contract the pupil.—The occasion of erection is a motive, since it is a representation; yet it works with the necessity of a stimulus: that is, it cannot be resisted, but one must remove it in order to make it ineffective. It is the same with disgusting objects, which excite an inclination to vomit. As a real middle term of quite another kind between movement on stimulus and acting according to a cognized motive we have just considered the instinct of animals. As yet another middle term of this kind one might be tempted to regard breathing: for it has been disputed whether it belongs to the voluntary or to the involuntary movements, that is, really whether it takes place on motive or on stimulus, according to which it might perhaps be declared a middle thing between the two. Marshall Hall (“On the diseases of the nervous system,” § 293 sq.) declares it a mixed function, since it stands under the influence partly of the cerebral (voluntary), partly of the spinal (involuntary) nerves. Yet in the end we must nonetheless count it among the manifestations of will that follow on motive: for other motives, that is, mere representations, can determine the will to inhibit it or to accelerate it, and it has, like every other voluntary action, the appearance that one could omit it altogether and suffocate freely. This one could in fact do, as soon as some other motive determined the will so strongly that it outweighed the urgent need for air. According to some, Diogenes really ended his life in this manner (Diog. Laert. VI, 76). Negroes too are said to have done this (F. B. Osiander, “On Suicide” 1813, pp. 170–180). We should have in this a strong example of the influence of abstract motives, that is, of the superior power of properly rational willing over the merely animal. The fact that prussic acid kills first by paralyzing the brain and so indirectly inhibiting breathing speaks for breathing’s being at least partly conditioned by cerebral activity: but if this is artificially maintained until that stupefaction of the brain has passed, no death occurs at all. At the same time breathing gives us here incidentally the most striking example that motives work with just as great necessity as stimuli and mere causes in the narrowest sense, and can be put out of effect only by opposing motives, as pressure by counterpressure: for in breathing the appearance of being able to omit it is incomparably weaker than in other movements that follow on motives; because there the motive is very urgent, very near, its satisfaction, owing to the indefatigability of the muscles that carry it out, very easy, nothing as a rule opposes it, and the whole is supported by the oldest habit of the individual. And yet all motives really work with the same necessity. The knowledge that necessity is common to the movements on motives and those on stimuli will make it easier for us to see that what takes place in the organic body on stimuli and wholly according to law is nevertheless in its inner essence will, which, though never in itself, yet in all its appearances is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, to necessity¹¹. We shall accordingly not stop at recognizing animals, as in their acting so also in their whole existence, embodiment [12] This cognition is firmly established by my prize essay on the freedom of the will, where (pp. 30–44 of the “Fundamental Problems of Ethics”) the relation between cause, stimulus and motive has accordingly received its detailed discussion., and organization, as appearances of will; but shall transfer this immediate cognition of the essence in itself of things, which alone is given to us, to plants also, all of whose movements follow on stimuli, since the absence of cognition and of the movement on motives conditioned by it alone constitutes the essential difference between animal and plant. What appears to representation as plant, as mere vegetation, blindly driving force, we shall therefore, in its essence in itself, declare to be will, and recognize as just that which constitutes the basis of our own appearance as it expresses itself in our doing and already in the whole existence of our body itself.

There remains for us only the last step to take, the extension of our way of considering to all those forces also which work in nature according to general, unchangeable laws, in accordance with which the movements of all those bodies take place which, wholly without organs, have no receptivity for the stimulus and no cognition for the motive. We must therefore apply the key to the understanding of the essence in itself of things, which the immediate cognition of our own essence alone could give us, also to these appearances of the inorganic world, which of all stand at the widest distance from us.—If we now regard them with an inquiring gaze, if we see the mighty, irresistible urge with which the waters hasten down to the depths, the persistence with which the magnet turns again and again to the north pole, the longing with which the iron flies to it, the vehemence with which the poles of electricity strive for reunion, and which, just like that of human wishes, is heightened by obstacles; if we see the crystal shoot swiftly and suddenly, with such regularity of formation, which is evidently only a quite decided and exactly determined striving in different directions, seized and held fast by rigidity; if we observe the choice with which bodies, set free by the state of fluidity and withdrawn from the bonds of rigidity, seek and flee one another, unite and separate; if we feel, finally, quite immediately how a weight, whose striving toward the mass of the earth our body hinders, presses and weighs on this ceaselessly, pursuing its one striving;—it will cost us no great effort of the imagination to recognize our own essence again even from so great a distance, that very same thing which in us pursues its aims by the light of cognition, but here, in the weakest of its appearances, strives only blindly, dully, one-sidedly and unchangeably, yet, because it is everywhere one and the same,—just as the first dawn shares with the rays of full noon the name of sunlight,—must here as there bear the name will, which designates that which is the being in itself of everything in the world and the sole kernel of every appearance.

The distance, however, indeed the appearance of a complete difference between the appearances of inorganic nature and the will which we perceive as the inner part of our own essence, arises chiefly from the contrast between the wholly determinate conformity to law in the one and the seemingly rule-less arbitrariness in the other kind of appearance. For in man individuality stands out powerfully: each has his own character: hence the same motive also has not the same force on all, and a thousand secondary circumstances, which have room in the wide sphere of cognition of the individual but remain unknown to others, modify its effect; for which reason the action cannot be predetermined from the motive alone, because the other factor is lacking, the exact knowledge of the individual character and of the cognition accompanying it. The appearances of the forces of nature, on the other hand, show here the other extreme: they work according to general laws, without deviation, without individuality, according to openly displayed circumstances, subject to the most exact predetermination, and the same force of nature manifests itself in the millions of its appearances in exactly the same way. In order to clear up this point, in order to demonstrate the identity of the one and indivisible will in all its so different appearances, in the weakest as in the strongest, we must first consider the relation which the will as thing in itself has to its appearance, that is, the world as will to the world as representation, whereby the best way will open to us to a more profound investigation of the whole subject treated in this second book [13].

24 We have learned from the great Kant that time, space and causality, in all their conformity to law and the possibility of all their forms, are present in our consciousness quite independently of the objects which appear in them and constitute their content, or in other words: that they can be found just as well if one starts from the subject as if one starts from the object; hence one can with equal right call them modes of intuition of the subject, or also characteristics of the object, insofar as it is object (in Kant: appearance), that is, representation. One can also regard those forms as the indivisible boundary between object and subject: hence all object must indeed appear in them, but the subject also, independently of the appearing object, possesses them completely and surveys them.—But if the objects appearing in these forms are not to be empty phantoms, but to have a meaning, they would have to point to something, be the expression of something, that was not again, like themselves, object, representation, something existing only relatively, namely for a subject; but which existed without such dependence on something standing over against it as essential condition and without its forms, that is, would be precisely no representation, but a thing in itself. Accordingly one could at least ask: are those representations, those objects, anything else besides and apart from being representations, objects of the subject? And what then would they be in this sense? What is that other side of them, toto genere different from representation? What is the thing in itself?—The will: has been our answer, which I nevertheless set aside for the present.

14 On this see Chap. 23 of the second volume, likewise, in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the chapter “Plant Physiology” and the chapter “Physical Astronomy,” which is exceedingly important for the kernel of my metaphysics. Whatever the thing in itself may be, Kant has rightly concluded that time, space and causality (which we have since recognized as forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and this as the general expression of the forms of appearance) are not determinations of it, but could attach to it only after and insofar as it had become representation, that is, belonged only to its appearance, not to it itself. For since the subject cognizes and constructs them wholly out of itself, independently of all object, they must adhere to being-representation as such, not to that which becomes representation. They must be the form of representation as such, not properties of that which has assumed this form. They must be given already with the mere opposition of subject and object (not in concept, but in fact), consequently be only the closer determination of the form of knowledge in general, whose most general determination is that opposition itself. Now what in the appearance, in the object, is in turn conditioned by time, space and causality, in that it can be represented only by means of them, namely multiplicity, through side-by-side and succession, change and duration, through the law of causality, and matter, which can be represented only on the presupposition of causality, finally everything again representable only by means of this—all this taken together is essentially not proper to that which appears, that which has entered into the form of representation, but attaches only to this form itself. Conversely, however, that in the appearance which is not conditioned by time, space and causality, nor reducible to them, nor to be explained according to them, will be precisely that in which what appears, the thing in itself, directly makes itself known. In accordance with this, the most perfect knowability, that is, the greatest clarity, distinctness and exhaustive fathomability, will necessarily belong to that which is proper to cognition as such, thus to the form of cognition; but not to that which, in itself not representation, not object, became knowable, that is, representation, object, only through entering into these forms. Only that, therefore, which depends solely on being known, on being-representation in general and as such (not on what is known, and has become representation), which therefore belongs without distinction to everything that is known, which for this very reason is found just as well if one starts from the subject as from the object,—this alone will be able to afford, without reserve, a sufficient, entirely exhaustive cognition, clear down to the last ground. This consists, however, in nothing other than the forms of all appearance known to us a priori, which can be jointly expressed as the principle of sufficient reason, whose forms relating to intuitive cognition (with which alone we are here concerned) are time, space and causality. On these alone the whole of pure mathematics and pure natural science a priori is founded. Only in these sciences, therefore, does cognition find no obscurity, does it not strike on the unfathomable (the groundless, that is, will), on what is not to be derived further, in which respect Kant also, as said, wished to call those cognitions, preeminently, indeed exclusively, along with logic, sciences. On the other hand, however, these cognitions show us nothing further than mere relations, relations of one representation to another, form, without any content. Every content they receive, every appearance that fills those forms, already contains something no longer fully cognizable in its whole essence, no longer to be explained wholly and entirely through another, thus something groundless, whereby cognition at once loses evidence and forfeits perfect transparency. But this which withdraws from fathoming is precisely the thing in itself, is that which is essentially not representation, not object of cognition, but has become knowable only by entering into that form. The form is originally foreign to it, and it can never become wholly one with it, can never be reduced to the mere form, and, since this is the principle of sufficient reason, can therefore not be completely fathomed. If, therefore, all mathematics gives us exhaustive cognition of what in the appearances is magnitude, position, number, in short spatial and temporal relation, if all etiology gives us completely the lawful conditions under which the appearances, with all their determinations, enter in time and space, but with all this teaches no more than in each case why each determinate appearance must show itself precisely now here and precisely here now; we still never penetrate by their help into the inner essence of things; there still always remains something on which no explanation may venture, but which it always presupposes, namely the forces of nature, the determinate mode of action of things, the quality, the character of every appearance, the groundless, which does not depend on the form of appearance, the principle of sufficient reason, to which this form is in itself foreign, but which has entered into it, and now comes forth according to its law, which law, however, again determines only the coming forth, not that which comes forth, only the how, not the what of the appearance, only the form, not the content.—Mechanics, physics, chemistry teach the rules and laws according to which the forces of impenetrability, gravity, rigidity, fluidity, cohesion, elasticity, heat, light, elective affinities, magnetism, electricity, and so on, act, that is, the law, the rule, which these forces observe in regard to their entrance in each case into time and space: the forces themselves, however, remain, however one may behave, qualitates occultae. For it is precisely the thing in itself which, in appearing, presents those phenomena, wholly different from them, in its appearance indeed wholly subject to the principle of sufficient reason as the form of representation, but itself never reducible to this form, and therefore not to be explained etiologically down to the last, never to be completely fathomed; indeed wholly comprehensible insofar as it has assumed that form, that is, insofar as it is appearance; but in its inner essence not in the least explained by that comprehensibility. Hence the more necessity a cognition carries with it, the more there is in it of what cannot be thought and represented otherwise at all—as, for example, the spatial relations—, the clearer and more sufficient it therefore is; the less purely objective content it has, or the less real reality is given in it: and conversely, the more of it must be apprehended as purely contingent, the more of it forces itself upon us as merely empirically given; the more there is in such cognition of what is really objective and truly real; but also at the same time the more of the inexplicable, that is, of what is not further derivable from something else.

Of course, in all ages an etiology that mistakes its goal has striven to trace all organic life back to chemism, or electricity, all chemism, that is, quality, in turn to mechanism (action through the shape of atoms), but this again partly to the object of phoronomy, that is, time and space united for the possibility of motion, partly to that of mere geometry, that is, position in space (about as one rightly constructs purely geometrically the decrease of an effect according to the square of the distance and the theory of the lever): geometry is finally resolvable into arithmetic, which is, because of unity of dimension, the most comprehensible, most surveyable form of the principle of sufficient reason, fathomable to the last. Examples of the method here generally indicated are: Democritus’s atoms, Descartes’s vortices, the mechanical physics of Lesage, who, toward the end of the last century, sought to explain both the chemical affinities and gravitation mechanically, by impact and pressure, as can be seen more closely in the “Lucrèce Neutonien”; Reil’s form and mixture as cause of animal life also tends in this direction: of quite this kind, finally, is the crude materialism now just warmed up again, in the middle of the nineteenth century, which in its ignorance fancies itself original, which first, with stupid denial of the vital force, would explain the appearances of life from physical and chemical forces, but let these arise again from the mechanical working of matter, from position, shape and motion of dreamed-up atoms, and so trace all forces of nature back to impact and counterimpact, which are its “thing in itself.” Accordingly even light is then to be the mechanical vibration, or even undulation, of an imaginary ether postulated for this purpose, which, when arrived, drums on the retina, where then, for example, 483 trillion drumbeats in a second give red, and 727 trillion violet, and so on: the color-blind would then be those who cannot count the drumbeats: is that not so? Such crass, mechanical, Democritean, clumsy and truly boorish theories are entirely worthy of people who, fifty years after the appearance of Goethe’s theory of colors, still believe in Newton’s homogeneous lights and are not ashamed to say so. They will learn that what is excused in the child (Democritus) is not forgiven in the man. They might even one day end ignominiously: but then everyone slinks away and acts as though he had not been there. We shall soon come to speak again of this false reduction of original forces of nature to one another: here only this much. Supposing this could be done, then indeed everything would be explained and fathomed, indeed finally reduced to a sum in arithmetic, which would then be the holy of holies in the temple of wisdom, to which the principle of sufficient reason would at last have happily guided. But all content of appearance would have vanished and mere form remained: that which appears would be reduced to how it appears, and this how would be what is also cognizable a priori, therefore wholly dependent on the subject, therefore only for it, therefore finally mere phantom, representation and form of representation through and through: no thing in itself could be asked about.—Supposing this could be done, the whole world would accordingly really be derived from the subject, and what Fichte wanted to seem to accomplish through his humbug would in fact be accomplished.—But now it cannot be done: fantasies, sophistries, castles in the air have been brought about in that way, no science. It has succeeded, and each time it succeeded gave a true advance, to trace the many and manifold appearances in nature back to single original forces: several forces and qualities, at first held to be different, have been derived one from another (for example, magnetism from electricity) and so their number diminished: etiology will have reached its goal when it has recognized and set up all the original forces of nature as such, and has established their modes of action, that is, the rule according to which, along the guiding thread of causality, their appearances enter in time and space and determine their places among one another: but primal forces will always remain, there will always remain as an insoluble residue a content of appearance that is not to be reduced to its form, thus not to be explained from something else according to the principle of sufficient reason.—For in every thing in nature there is something of which no ground can ever be given, no explanation possible, no further cause to be sought: it is the specific mode of its action, that is, precisely the mode of its existence, its essence. Of every single effect of the thing a cause is indeed to be shown, from which it follows that it had to act precisely now, precisely here: but that it acts at all and precisely thus, never. If it has no other properties, if it is a mote of dust, it at least shows, as gravity and impenetrability, that unfathomable something: this, however, I say, is to it what his will is to man, and is, like this, in its inner essence not subject to explanation, indeed is in itself identical with this. For every manifestation of the will, for every single act of it at this time, at this place, a motive can indeed be shown, on which it, on the presupposition of the man’s character, had necessarily to follow. But that he has this character, that he wills at all, that of several motives precisely this and no other, indeed that any motive at all moves his will, of this no ground can ever be given. What for man his unfathomable character is, presupposed in all explanation of his deeds from motives: that is to every inorganic body its essential quality, the mode of its action, whose manifestations are called forth by influence from without, while it itself is determined by nothing outside it, and therefore also is not explicable: its single appearances, through which alone it becomes visible, are subject to the principle of sufficient reason: it itself is groundless. The Scholastics already had recognized this correctly in essentials and designated it as forma substantialis. (On which see Suarez, Disput. metaph., disp. XV, sect. 1.)

It is an error as great as it is common to suppose that the most frequent, most general and simplest appearances are those we understand best; they are rather only those to whose sight, and to our ignorance of which, we have grown most accustomed. It is just as inexplicable to us that a stone falls to the earth as that an animal moves. As mentioned above, it has been supposed that, starting from the most general forces of nature (for example gravitation, cohesion, impenetrability), one would explain from them those which work more rarely and only under combined circumstances (for example chemical quality, electricity, magnetism), and finally understand from these again the organism and the life of animals, indeed man’s cognizing and willing. Men tacitly acquiesced in starting from sheer qualitates occultae, whose elucidation was wholly given up, since one intended to build upon them, not to undermine them. Such a thing cannot succeed, as said. But apart from that, such a building would always stand in the air. What good are explanations that in the end lead back to something just as unknown as the first problem was? But does one in the end understand more of the inner essence of those general forces of nature than of the inner essence of an animal? Is not the one as unexplored as the other? Unfathomable, because groundless, because it is the content, the what of the appearance, which can never be reduced to its form, to the how, to the principle of sufficient reason. We, however, who here intend not etiology but philosophy, that is, not relative but unconditional cognition of the essence of the world, take the opposite way and start from what is immediately known to us, what is known to us most completely and wholly familiar, what lies nearest to us, in order to understand what is known to us only remotely, one-sidedly and mediately: and from the mightiest, most significant, most distinct appearance we wish to learn to understand the more imperfect, weaker. Of all things, my own body excepted, only one side is known to me, that of representation: their inner essence remains closed to me and a deep mystery, even if I know all the causes on which their changes follow. Only from comparison with what goes on in me when, a motive moving me, my body performs an action—what is the inner essence of my own changes determined by external grounds—can I gain insight into the manner and way in which those lifeless bodies change on causes, and so understand what their inner essence is, of whose appearing the knowledge of the cause gives me merely the rule of entrance in time and space and nothing more. This I can do because my body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of representation, but also the second, which is called will. Instead, therefore, of believing that I should understand my own organization, then my cognizing and willing and my movement on motives, better if only I could trace them back to movement from causes, through electricity, through chemism, through mechanism; I must, insofar as I seek philosophy, not etiology, conversely learn to understand even the simplest and commonest movements of the inorganic body, which I see follow on causes, first of all in their inner essence from my own movement on motives, and recognize the unfathomable forces that manifest themselves in all bodies of nature as identical in kind with what in me is the will, and as differing from it only in degree. This means: the fourth class of representations, set up in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, must become for me the key to the cognition of the inner essence of the first class, and from the law of motivation I must learn to understand the law of causality in its inner meaning.

Spinoza says (epist. 62) that the stone flying through the air from a blow, if it had consciousness, would think it flew of its own will. I add only that the stone would be right. The blow is to it what the motive is to me, and what appears in it as cohesion, gravity, persistence in the assumed state is, in inner essence, the same as what I recognize in myself as will, and what, if cognition were added in its case too, it also would recognize as will. Spinoza, in that passage, had directed his attention to the necessity with which the stone flies and wants, rightly, to transfer it to the necessity of the single act of will of a person. I, on the other hand, consider the inner essence which first gives meaning and validity to all real necessity (that is, effect from cause), as its presupposition, which in man is called character, in the stone quality, but in both is the same, where it is immediately cognized is called will, and which in the stone has the weakest, in man the strongest degree of visibility, of objectivity.—Even St. Augustine, with a sound feeling, recognized this element in the striving of all things that is identical with our willing, and I cannot refrain from setting down his naive expression of the matter: Si pecora essemus, carnalem vitam et quod secundum sensum ejusdem est amaremus, idque esset sufficiens bonum nostrum, et secundum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud quaereremus. Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus: verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, uberiusque fructuosae. Si essemus lapides, aut fluctus, aut ventus, aut flamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atque vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus. Nam velut amores corporum momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur: ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amore fertur quocunque fertur (de civ. Dei, XI, 28).

It also deserves notice that Euler already saw that the essence of gravitation must in the end be traced back to an “inclination and desire” (that is, will) peculiar to bodies (in the 68th Letter to the Princess). Indeed, just this makes him averse to the concept of gravitation as it stands in Newton, and he is inclined to try a modification of it in accordance with the earlier Cartesian theory, thus to derive gravitation from the impact of an ether on the bodies, which would be “more reasonable and more suitable to people who love clear and comprehensible principles.” He wants to see attraction banished from physics as a qualitas occulta. This is indeed only in accordance with the dead view of nature which, as correlate of the immaterial soul, ruled in Euler’s time: but it is noteworthy with regard to the fundamental truth I have set up, which, namely, this keen mind, already then seeing it glimmer through from afar, hastened to turn back in time and now, in his anxiety at seeing all the then fundamental views endangered, even sought protection in the old, already discarded absurdity.

25 We know that multiplicity in general is necessarily conditioned by time and space and is thinkable only in them, which in this respect we call the principium individuationis. Time and space, however, we have recognized as forms of the principle of sufficient reason, in which principle all our a priori cognition is expressed, but which, as set forth above, belongs just as such only to the knowability of things, not to them themselves, that is, is only our form of cognition, not a property of the thing in itself, which as such is free from every form of cognition, even from the most general, that of being object for the subject, that is, is something wholly and entirely different from representation. If now this thing in itself is, as I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated and made evident, the will; then it lies, as such and considered apart from its appearance, outside time and space, and accordingly knows no multiplicity, is consequently one; yet, as already said, not as an individual is one, nor as a concept is one; but as something to which the condition of the possibility of multiplicity, the principium individuationis, is foreign. The multiplicity of things in space and time, which are all its objectivity, therefore does not touch it and it remains, in spite of them, indivisible. It is not as though a smaller part of it were in the stone, a larger in man: since the relation of part and whole belongs exclusively to space and has no more meaning as soon as one has departed from this form of intuition; but also the more and less touches only the appearance, that is, the visibility, the objectification: of this there is a higher degree in the plant than in the stone; in the animal a higher than in the plant: indeed its emergence into visibility, its objectification, has as infinite gradations as there are between the faintest twilight and the brightest sunlight, the strongest tone and the faintest after-sound. We shall return below to the consideration of these degrees of visibility, which belong to its objectification, to the image of its essence. Still less, however, than the gradations of its objectification touch it itself immediately, does the multiplicity of appearances on these different stages touch it, that is, the number of individuals of each form, or of the single manifestations of each force; since this multiplicity is immediately conditioned by time and space, into which it itself never enters.

It reveals itself as wholly and as fully in one oak as in millions: their number, their multiplication in space and time, has no meaning at all with regard to it, but only with regard to the multiplicity of the individuals who know in space and time and are themselves multiplied and scattered in it, whose multiplicity, however, is itself again only its appearance, and does not concern it. Hence one could also assert that if, per impossibile, a single being, were it the least, were wholly annihilated, the whole world would have to perish with it. In the feeling of this the great mystic Angelus Silesius says:

“I know that without me God cannot live a moment: Were I to come to nothing, He must of necessity give up the ghost.”

Various attempts have been made to bring the immeasurable size of the universe nearer to the grasp of everyone, and then to take occasion for edifying reflections, such as on the relative smallness of the earth and indeed of man; then again, in contrast to this, on the greatness of the mind in this so small man, who can work out, comprehend, indeed measure that cosmic greatness, and the like. All very well! Meanwhile, for me, in contemplating the immensity of the world, the most important thing is this: that the essence in itself, whose appearance is the world,—whatever it may be,—cannot have its true self thus drawn apart and divided in boundless space, but this infinite extension belongs wholly to its appearance alone, while it itself, on the contrary, is present whole and undivided in every thing of nature, in every living being; hence one loses nothing by stopping at any single particular, and true wisdom too is not to be attained by measuring the boundless world, or, what would be still more to the purpose, by personally flying through endless space; but rather by thoroughly investigating some single particular, in that one seeks to learn to know and understand perfectly its true and proper essence.

Accordingly the following, which has already forced itself on every pupil of Plato of its own accord, will be the subject of a detailed consideration in the next book, namely that those different stages of the objectification of the will, which, expressed in countless individuals, stand there as the unattained models of these, or as the eternal forms of things, not themselves entering into time and space, the medium of the individuals; but standing fast, subject to no change, always being, never having become; while those arise and pass away, always become and never are; that, I say, these stages of the objectification of the will are nothing other than Plato’s Ideas. I mention it here provisionally, in order to be able henceforth to use the word Idea in this sense, which with me is therefore always to be understood in its genuine and original meaning, given to it by Plato, and in which one is by no means to think of those abstract productions of scholastically dogmatizing reason, to designate which Kant misused that word, already taken possession of by Plato and used most appropriately, as unsuitably as unlawfully. By Idea, then, I understand every determinate and fixed stage of the objectification of the will, insofar as it is thing in itself and therefore foreign to multiplicity, which stages are related to the single things indeed as their eternal forms, or their models. The briefest and most concise expression of that famous Platonic dogma is given us by Diogenes Laertius (III, 12): ὁ Πλατων φησι, εν τῃ φυσει τας ιδεας ἑσταναι, καθαπερ παραδειγματα· τα δ’αλλα ταυταις εοικεναι, τουτων ὁμοιωματα καθεστωτα. (Plato ideas in natura velut exemplaria dixit subsistere; cetera his esse similia, ad istarum similitudinem consistentia.) Of that Kantian misuse I take no further notice: what is necessary about it stands in the Appendix.

26 The most general forces of nature present themselves as the lowest stage of the objectification of the will; they partly appear in every matter without exception, like gravity, impenetrability, partly have divided among themselves the matter that exists at all, so that some rule over this, others over that matter, thereby specifically different, such as rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, chemical properties and qualities of every kind. They are in themselves immediate appearances of the will, just as much as the doing of man, are as such groundless, like the character of man, only their single appearances are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, like the actions of man, they themselves, however, can never be called either effect or cause, but are the antecedent and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects, through which their own essence unfolds and reveals itself. It is therefore senseless to ask for a cause of gravity, of electricity: these are original forces, whose manifestations indeed take place according to cause and effect, so that every single appearance of them has a cause, which itself again is just such a single appearance and gives the determination that here that force had to manifest itself, to come forth in time and space; but by no means is the force itself effect of a cause, nor yet cause of an effect.—Hence it is also false to say: “gravity is the cause that the stone falls”; rather the nearness of the earth is the cause here, in that it attracts the stone. Take away the earth, and the stone will not fall, although gravity has remained. The force itself lies wholly outside the chain of causes and effects, which presupposes time, since it has meaning only in relation to this, while the force lies outside time as well. The single change always has again an equally single change as its cause, not the force whose manifestation it is. For that very thing which always lends efficacy to a cause, however countless times it may occur, is a force of nature, is as such groundless, that is, lies wholly outside the chain of causes and in general the domain of the principle of sufficient reason, and is philosophically recognized as immediate objectivity of the will, which is the in-itself of the whole of nature; in etiology, here physics, however, it is demonstrated as original force, that is, qualitas occulta.

On the higher levels of the objectivity of the will we see individuality emerge significantly, especially in man, as the great diversity of individual characters, that is, as complete personality, already expressed outwardly by a strongly marked individual physiognomy, which takes in the whole bodily organization. No animal has this individuality to anything like such a degree; only the higher animals have a touch of it, and even in them the character of the species still wholly predominates, and for that very reason there is little individual physiognomy. The farther down we go, the more every trace of individual character is lost in the general character of the species, whose physiognomy alone remains. One knows the psychological character of the species, and from it knows exactly what is to be expected of the individual; whereas in the human species every individual has to be studied and fathomed by himself, which, if one is to predict his conduct with any certainty, is of the greatest difficulty, because of the possibility of dissimulation, which entered only with reason. It is probably connected with this difference between the human species and all others that the furrows and convolutions of the brain, which are still entirely lacking in birds and still very faint in rodents, are, even in the higher animals, far more symmetrical on the two sides and more constantly the same in each individual than in man [15]. Further, it is to be regarded as a phenomenon of that true individual character which distinguishes man from all animals that in animals the sexual impulse seeks its satisfaction without noticeable selection, whereas in man this selection, and in a manner that is instinctive and independent of all reflection, is carried so far that it rises to violent passion. So while every human being is to be regarded as a particularly determined and characterized appearance of the will, even in a certain sense as an Idea of his own, in animals this individual character is on the whole lacking, since only the species still has a distinctive significance, and its trace vanishes more and more the farther they stand from man, and plants at last have no other peculiarities of the individual than such as can be fully explained by external, favorable [16] Wenzel, De structura cerebri hominis et brutorum 1812, ch. 3.—Cuvier, Leçons d’anat. comp. leçon 9, art. 4 and 5.—Vicq d’Azyr, Hist. de l’acad. d. sc. de Paris 1783, p. 470 and 483. or unfavorable influences of soil and climate and other contingencies; so finally, in the inorganic realm of nature, all individuality disappears entirely. Only the crystal can still in a certain sense be regarded as an individual: it is a unity of striving in determinate directions, seized by the solidification that makes the trace of that striving permanent; it is at the same time an aggregate of its nuclear form, joined into a unity by an Idea, just as the tree is an aggregate of the single sprouting fiber, which presents itself, repeated, in every rib of the leaf, every leaf, every branch, and lets each of these be regarded in a way as a plant of its own, feeding parasitically on the larger one, so that the tree, like the crystal, is a systematic aggregate of little plants, although only the whole is the completed presentation of an indivisible Idea, that is, of this determinate level of the objectification of the will. The individuals of the same species of crystals, however, can have no other difference than external accidents bring about; indeed one can make each species shoot into large or small crystals at will. But the individual as such, that is, with traces of an individual character, is no longer to be found at all in inorganic nature. All its appearances are expressions of universal forces of nature, that is, of such levels of the objectification of the will as do not objectify themselves at all (as in organic nature) by means of the diversity of individualities, each of which expresses a part of the whole Idea, but present themselves in the species alone, and in each single appearance of it wholly and without any deviation. Since time, space, multiplicity and conditionedness by cause belong neither to the will nor to the Idea (the level of the objectification of the will), but only to the single appearances of the latter, in all the millions of appearances of such a force of nature, gravity or electricity for instance, it must present itself, as such, in exactly the same way, and only the external circumstances can modify the appearance. This unity of its essence in all its appearances, this unchanging constancy of their occurrence as soon as, on the guiding thread of causality, the conditions for it are present, is called a law of nature.

Once such a law is known through experience, the appearance of the force of nature whose character is expressed and deposited in it can be exactly predetermined and calculated. It is precisely this lawfulness of the appearances at the lower levels of the objectification of the will, however, that gives them so different a look from the appearances of the same will at the higher, that is, more distinct levels of its objectification, in animals, in men and in their actions, where the stronger or weaker emergence of individual character and the being moved by motives, which, because they lie in knowledge, often remain hidden from the spectator, have hitherto made us entirely fail to recognize the identity of the inner essence of both kinds of appearances.

The infallibility of the laws of nature, if one starts from the knowledge of the particular and not from that of the Idea, has something astonishing about it, indeed at times something almost shudder-inducing. One might wonder that nature never once forgets its laws: that, for instance, if it is once in accordance with a law of nature that, when certain substances meet under determinate conditions, a chemical combination, a release of gas, a combustion takes place, then also, whenever the conditions come together, whether by our arrangement or entirely by chance (where the punctuality is all the more astonishing for being unexpected), today as well as a thousand years ago, the determinate appearance occurs at once and without delay. We feel this marvel most vividly in rare appearances, which follow only under very complicated circumstances but are announced to us beforehand as following under them: for example, that when certain metals, alternating with one another and with an acidulated liquid, touch each other, leaves of silver placed between the ends of this chain must suddenly go up in green flames; or that under certain conditions the hard diamond changes into carbonic acid. It is the ghostlike omnipresence of the forces of nature that then startles us, and what no longer occurs to us in everyday appearances, we notice here, namely how mysterious the connection between cause and effect really is; like the connection one imagines between a magic formula and the spirit that, summoned by it, necessarily appears. If, on the other hand, we have penetrated to the philosophical knowledge that a force of nature is a determinate level of the objectification of the will, that is, of that which we too recognize as our innermost essence; and that this will in itself, as distinct from its appearance and the forms of that, lies outside time and space, and that the multiplicity conditioned by these therefore belongs neither to it nor immediately to the level of its objectification, that is, the Idea, but only to the appearances of that Idea; and that the law of causality has significance only in relation to time and space, in that it determines in them, for the multiplied appearances of the different Ideas in which the will manifests itself, their place, regulating the order in which they must enter;—if, I say, in this knowledge the inner sense of Kant’s great doctrine has dawned on us, that space, time and causality belong not to the thing in itself but only to the appearance, are only forms of our knowledge, not qualities of the thing in itself; then we shall see that this astonishment at the lawfulness and punctuality of the working of a force of nature, at the perfect equality of all its millions of appearances, at the infallibility of their occurrence, is in truth comparable to the astonishment of a child or a savage who, looking for the first time through a many-faceted glass at, say, a flower, marvels at the perfect likeness of the countless flowers he sees, and counts the petals of each of them one by one.

Every universal original force of nature is therefore in its inner essence nothing other than the objectification of the will at a low level: each such level we call an eternal Idea, in Plato’s sense. The law of nature, however, is the relation of the Idea to the form of its appearance. This form is time, space and causality, which have a necessary and inseparable connection and relation to one another. Through time and space the Idea multiplies itself into countless appearances; but the order in which these enter those forms of manifoldness is firmly determined by the law of causality: this law is, as it were, the norm of the boundary points of those appearances of different Ideas, according to which space, time and matter are distributed among them. This norm therefore necessarily relates to the identity of the whole of existing matter, which is the common substratum of all those different appearances. If these were not all assigned to that common matter, in the possession of which they have to share, there would be no need of such a law to determine their claims: they could all fill infinite space at once and side by side, through an infinite time. Only because all those appearances of the eternal Ideas are assigned to one and the same matter must there have been a rule for their entering and departing: otherwise none would make room for another. In this way the law of causality is essentially bound up with that of the permanence of substance: the two receive significance only from each other; and space and time, again, are related to them in the same way. For the mere possibility of opposite determinations in the same matter is time; the mere possibility of the persistence of the same matter under all opposite determinations is space. Therefore in the previous book we explained matter as the union of time and space; which union shows itself as the change of accidents with the persistence of substance, the universal possibility of which is just causality, or becoming. We therefore also said that matter is through and through causality. We explained the understanding as the subjective correlate of causality, and said that matter (and so the whole world as representation) exists only for the understanding, that the understanding is its condition, its supporter, as its necessary correlate. All this is said here only as a passing reminder of what was set out in the first book. Attention to the inner agreement of the two books is required for a full understanding of them: for what in the real world is inseparably united, as its two sides, will and representation, has been torn apart by these two books, so that each, isolated, may be known the more distinctly.

It may perhaps not be superfluous to make it still clearer by an example how the law of causality has significance only in relation to time and space and the matter that consists in the union of the two, in that it determines the limits according to which the appearances of the forces of nature divide possession of that matter among themselves, while the original forces of nature themselves, as immediate objectifications of the will, which as thing in itself is not subject to the principle of sufficient reason, lie outside those forms within which alone every etiological explanation has validity and significance, and for that very reason can never lead to the inner essence of nature.—Let us imagine for this purpose, say, a machine constructed according to the laws of mechanics. Iron weights start the motion by their gravity; copper wheels resist by their rigidity, push and lift one another and the levers by virtue of their impenetrability, and so on. Here gravity, rigidity, impenetrability are original, unexplained forces: mechanics states only the conditions under which, and the manner in which, they express themselves, come forth, and govern a definite matter, time and place. Now a strong magnet may act on the iron of the weights and overpower gravity: the motion of the machine stops, and the matter is at once the scene of an entirely different force of nature, of which the etiological explanation likewise states nothing more than the conditions of its occurrence, magnetism. Or else the copper disks of this machine are now laid on zinc plates and an acidulated liquid is led between them: at once the same matter of the machine has fallen to another original force, galvanism, which now governs it according to its laws, reveals itself in it through its appearances, of which etiology again can state no more than the circumstances under which, and the laws according to which, they show themselves. Now let us raise the temperature, let pure oxygen be added: the whole machine burns up; that is, once again an entirely different force of nature, chemism, at this time, in this place, has an irrefusable claim to that matter, and reveals itself in it as Idea, as a determinate level of the objectification of the will.—Let the metal calx thus produced now combine with an acid: a salt arises, crystals shoot: they are the appearance of yet another Idea, itself again wholly unfathomable, while the occurrence of its appearance depended on those conditions which etiology knows how to state. The crystals effloresce, mingle with other substances, a vegetation rises out of them: a new appearance of the will;—and so one could follow the very same persisting matter into infinity, and watch how now this force of nature, now that, gains a right to it and unfailingly seizes it, in order to come forth and reveal its essence. The determination of this right, the point in time and space where it becomes valid, is given by the law of causality; but the explanation founded on that law goes only so far. The force itself is an appearance of the will and as such is not subject to the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, that is, is groundless. It lies outside all time, is omnipresent, and seems as it were constantly to wait for the occurrence of the circumstances under which it can come forth and take possession of a definite matter, displacing the forces that until then governed it. All time exists only for its appearance, is without significance for the force itself: for thousands of years the chemical forces slumber in a matter, until the contact of the reagents sets them free; then they appear: but time exists only for this appearance, not for the forces themselves. For thousands of years galvanism slumbers in copper and zinc, and they lie quietly beside the silver, which, as soon as all three touch under the required conditions, must go up in flames. Even in the organic realm we see a dry seed preserve for three thousand years the slumbering force which, when favorable circumstances at last occur, rises up as a plant [17].

18 On 16 Sept. 1840, at the Literary and Scientific Institution of the City of London, Mr. Pettigrew, in a lecture on Egyptian antiquities, exhibited grains of wheat which Sir G. Wilkinson had found in a tomb near Thebes, where they must have lain for thirty centuries. They were found in a hermetically sealed vase. He had sown twelve grains and obtained from them a plant which had grown five feet high and whose seed was now perfectly ripe. From the Times, of 21 Sept. 1840.—Likewise, at the Medico-Botanical Society of London, in the year 1830, Mr. Haulton produced a tuberous root which was found in the hand of an Egyptian mummy If this reflection has now made the difference between the force of nature and all its appearances clear to us; if we have seen that the former is the will itself at this determinate level of its objectification, while multiplicity, through time and space, belongs to the appearances alone, and the law of causality is nothing other than the determination of the place in these for the single appearances; then we shall also recognize the perfect truth and the deep meaning of Mallebranche’s doctrine of occasional causes, causes occasionnelles. It is well worth the trouble to compare this doctrine of his, as he sets it forth in the Recherches de la vérité, especially in the third chapter of the second part of the sixth book and in the éclaircissements appended at the back to this chapter, with my present exposition, and to perceive the most perfect agreement of the two doctrines, in spite of so great a difference in the course of thought. Indeed, I must admire how Mallebranche, wholly entangled in the positive dogmas which his age irresistibly forced upon him, nevertheless, in such fetters, under such a burden, hit upon the truth so happily and so rightly, and knew how to unite it with those very dogmas, at least with their language.

For the power of truth is incredibly great and of unspeakable endurance. We find its frequent traces again in all, even the most bizarre, indeed the most absurd dogmas of various to whom it had probably been given out of a religious consideration, and which was therefore at least 2000 years old. He had planted it in a flowerpot, where it had at once grown and turned green. This is cited from the Medical Journal of 1830 in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Great-Britain, October 1830, p. 196.—“In the garden of Mr. Grimstone, of the Herbarium, Highgate, in London, there now stands a pea plant in full fruit, which has sprung from a pea that Mr. Pettigrew and the officers of the British Museum took out of a vase which had been found in an Egyptian sarcophagus, where it must have lain for 2844 years.”—From the Times of 16 August 1844.—Indeed, the living toads found in limestone lead to the supposition that even animal life is capable of such a suspension for thousands of years, if it is introduced by hibernation and maintained by special circumstances. times and countries, often indeed in strange company, in curious mixture, but still recognizable. It is then like a plant that germinates under a heap of large stones, yet climbs up toward the light, working its way through, with many detours and twists, deformed, pale, stunted;—but toward the light nonetheless.

Mallebranche is indeed right: every natural cause is only an occasional cause, gives only the occasion, the inducement, for the appearance of that one and indivisible will which is the in-itself of all things and whose graduated objectification is this whole visible world. Only the coming forth, the becoming visible at this place, at this time, is brought about by the cause and is to that extent dependent on it, but not the whole of the appearance, not its inner essence: this is the will itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason is not applicable, which is therefore groundless. No thing in the world has a cause of its existence simply and as such, but only a cause by which it is present precisely here and precisely now. Why a stone now shows gravity, now rigidity, now electricity, now chemical properties, depends on causes, on external influences, and is to be explained from these: but those properties themselves, and so its whole essence, which consists of them and consequently expresses itself in all the ways just listed, that it is therefore at all such as it is, that it exists at all, has no ground, but is the becoming-visible of the groundless will. Thus all cause is occasional cause. So we have found it in nature without knowledge: but just so it is also where it is no longer causes and stimuli but motives that determine the point of entry of the appearances, that is, in the actions of animals and men. For here as there it is one and the same will that appears, most different in the degrees of its manifestation, multiplied in the appearances of it, and in regard to these subject to the principle of sufficient reason, in itself free of all this. Motives do not determine the character of man, but only the appearance of this character, that is, the deeds; the outward shape of his course of life, not its inner meaning and content: these proceed from the character, which is the immediate appearance of the will and therefore groundless. Why one man is wicked and another good does not depend on motives and external influence, on teachings and sermons, say, and is in this sense absolutely inexplicable. But whether a wicked man shows his wickedness in petty injustices, cowardly intrigues, base knaveries, which he practices in the narrow circle of his surroundings, or whether as a conqueror he oppresses nations, plunges a world into misery, sheds the blood of millions: this is the outward form of his appearance, the unessential part of it, and depends on the circumstances in which fate placed him, on his surroundings, on external influences, on motives; but his decision in response to these motives is never explicable from them: it proceeds from the will, whose appearance this man is. Of this in the fourth book. The manner in which the character unfolds its properties is wholly comparable to the manner in which every body of knowledgeless nature shows its own. Water remains water, with the properties inherent in it; but whether as a still lake it mirrors its banks, or plunges foaming over rocks, or, artificially induced, spouts up as a long jet: that depends on external causes; the one is as natural to it as the other; but according to the circumstances it will show the one or the other, equally ready for everything, yet in every case true to its character and always revealing only this. So too will every human character reveal itself under all circumstances; but the appearances that proceed from it will be such as the circumstances were.

27 If it has now become clear to us, from all the preceding considerations on the forces of nature and their appearances, how far explanation from causes can go and where it must stop, if it is not to fall into the foolish endeavor of tracing the content of all appearances back to their mere form, in which case nothing but form would remain in the end; then we shall now also be able to determine in general what is to be demanded of all etiology. It has to seek out, for all appearances in nature, the causes, that is, the circumstances under which they always occur: but then it has to trace the appearances, many-shaped under manifold circumstances, back to that which acts in every appearance and is presupposed in the cause, to original forces of nature, rightly distinguishing whether a difference in the appearance comes from a difference of the force or only from a difference in the circumstances under which the force expresses itself, and guarding itself equally against taking as the appearance of different forces what is the expression of one and the same force merely under different circumstances, and, conversely, against taking as expressions of one force what originally belongs to different forces. This calls directly for the power of judgment; hence so few men are able to extend insight in physics, while all can extend experience. Laziness and ignorance make one inclined to appeal too early to original forces: this shows itself, with an exaggeration resembling irony, in the entities and quiddities of the Scholastics. Nothing is further from my wish than to have favored their reintroduction. One may as little appeal to the objectification of the will, instead of giving a physical explanation, as to the creative power of God. For physics demands causes: but the will is never cause: its relation to the appearance is not at all according to the principle of sufficient reason; rather, what is in itself will exists on the other side as representation, that is, is appearance: as such it obeys the laws that constitute the form of the appearance: so, for example, every motion, although it is always an appearance of the will, must nevertheless have a cause from which it is to be explained in relation to a determinate time and place, that is, not in general, according to its inner essence, but as a single appearance. This cause is mechanical in the case of a stone, is a motive in the case of the movement of a man: but it can never be lacking. On the other hand, the universal, the common essence of all appearances of a certain kind, that without the presupposition of which explanation from the cause would have neither sense nor significance, is the universal force of nature, which in physics must remain a qualitas occulta, precisely because here the etiological explanation comes to an end and the metaphysical begins. The chain of causes and effects, however, is never broken by an original force to which one would have to appeal, does not run back to it as to its first link; rather the nearest link of the chain, just as much as the remotest, already presupposes the original force, and could otherwise explain nothing. A series of causes and effects can be the appearance of the most diverse forces, whose successive entry into visibility is guided by it, as I explained above by the example of a metal machine: but the diversity of these original forces, which cannot be derived from one another, by no means interrupts the unity of that chain of causes and the connection between all its links. The etiology of nature and the philosophy of nature never do each other harm; rather they go side by side, regarding the same object from different points of view. Etiology gives an account of the causes that necessarily brought about the single appearance to be explained, and shows, as the foundation of all its explanations, the universal forces that are active in all these causes and effects, determines these forces exactly, their number, their differences, and then all the effects in which each force comes forth differently according to the difference of the circumstances, always in keeping with its peculiar character, which it unfolds according to an infallible rule that is called a law of nature. As soon as physics shall have accomplished all this completely in every respect, it will have reached its completion: then no force in inorganic nature is any longer unknown, and there is no longer any effect that has not been demonstrated to be the appearance of one of those forces, under determinate circumstances, in accordance with a law of nature. Nevertheless a law of nature remains merely the rule noted in nature, according to which it proceeds each time under determinate circumstances, as soon as these occur: hence one can indeed define the law of nature as a universally expressed fact, un fait généralisé; whereupon a complete exposition of all laws of nature would be only a complete register of facts.—The consideration of nature as a whole is then completed by morphology, which enumerates, compares and orders all the permanent forms of organic nature: about the cause of the occurrence of the individual beings it has little to say, since in all of them this is generation, whose theory goes its own way, and in rare cases generatio aequivoca. To this latter, however, strictly speaking, belongs also the way in which all the lower levels of the objectivity of the will, that is, the physical and chemical appearances, come forth in particular cases, and the statement of the conditions for this coming forth is precisely that task of etiology. Philosophy, on the other hand, considers everywhere, and so in nature too, only the universal: the original forces themselves are here its object, and it recognizes in them the different levels of the objectification of the will, which is the inner essence, the in-itself of this world, which, when it abstracts from that will, it declares to be the mere representation of the subject.—If, however, etiology, instead of preparing the way for philosophy and supplying its teachings with application by means of examples, rather supposes that its goal is to deny all original forces, except perhaps one, the most general, impenetrability for example, which it imagines it understands from the ground up and accordingly seeks to trace all the others violently back to it; then it deprives itself of its own foundation, and can give only error instead of truth. The content of nature is now displaced by the form, everything is ascribed to the acting circumstances, nothing to the inner essence of things. Were it really to succeed on this path, then, as already said, a sum in arithmetic would in the end solve the riddle of the world. But this is the path taken when, as already mentioned, all physiological effect is to be traced back to form and mixture, thus say to electricity, this again to chemism, and this to mechanism. The last was, for example, the error of Descartes and of all the atomists, who traced the motion of the heavenly bodies to the impact of a fluid, and the qualities to the cohesion and shape of the atoms, and worked toward declaring all appearances of nature to be mere phenomena of impenetrability and cohesion. Although this has been given up, the electrical, chemical and mechanical physiologists of our own days nonetheless do the same, and obstinately want to explain the whole of life and all the functions of the organism from the “form and mixture” of its constituents. That the goal of physiological explanation is the reduction of organic life to the universal forces which physics considers, is found still stated in Meckel’s Archiv für Physiologie, 1820, vol. 5, p. 185.—Also Lamarck, in his Philosophie zoologique, vol. 2, ch. 3, declares life to be a mere effect of warmth and electricity: le calorique et la matière électrique suffisent parfaitement pour composer ensemble cette cause essentielle de la vie (p. 16). According to that, warmth and electricity would really be the thing in itself and the animal and plant world its appearance. The absurdity of this opinion stands out glaringly on p. 306 ff. of that work. It is well known that in the most recent time all those views, so often exploded, have reappeared with renewed audacity. At the bottom of them, if one considers it closely, lies finally the presupposition that the organism is only an aggregate of appearances of physical, chemical and mechanical forces, which, come together here by chance, have brought the organism about, as a freak of nature without further significance. The organism of an animal, or of man, would accordingly, philosophically considered, not be the presentation of an Idea of its own, that is, not itself immediately objectivity of the will at a certain higher level; but in it would appear only those Ideas which objectify the will in electricity, in chemism, in mechanism: the organism would therefore be as accidentally blown together from the meeting of these forces as the figures of men and animals out of clouds or stalactites, and hence in itself not further interesting.—We shall, however, see directly how far that application of physical and chemical modes of explanation to the organism may nevertheless be permitted and useful within certain limits; for I shall show that the vital force does indeed use and employ the forces of inorganic nature, yet by no means consists of them; as little as the smith consists of hammer and anvil. Hence not even the so very simple plant life will ever be explained from them, from capillary force and endosmosis, say, to say nothing of animal life.

The following consideration prepares the way for that rather difficult discussion.

It is true that, in accordance with all that has been said, it is an aberration of natural science when it tries to trace the higher grades of the objectivity of the will back to lower ones; for to misjudge and deny original, self-subsisting forces of nature is just as faulty as to assume peculiar forces without ground where there is merely a particular mode of appearance of forces already known. Kant therefore says rightly that it is absurd to hope for a Newton of the blade of grass, that is, for one who would trace the blade of grass back to appearances of physical and chemical forces, of which it would then be only the accidental concretion, a mere freak of nature, in which no peculiar Idea appeared, that is, in which the will did not reveal itself directly on a higher and special grade, but only just as in the appearances of inorganic nature, and by accident in this form. The Scholastics, who would by no means have allowed anything of the kind, would have been quite right to say that it was a complete denial of the forma substantialis and a degrading of it to a forma accidentalis. For Aristotle’s forma substantialis designates precisely what I call the grade of objectification of the will in a thing.—On the other hand, however, we must not overlook that in all Ideas, that is, in all forces of inorganic and all forms of organic nature, it is one and the same will that reveals itself, that is, enters into the form of representation, into objectivity. Its unity must therefore make itself known also through an inner kinship among all its appearances. This kinship reveals itself on the higher grades of its objectivity, where the whole appearance is more distinct, that is, in the plant and animal kingdoms, through the universally pervading analogy of all forms, the fundamental type, which recurs in all appearances. This type has therefore become the guiding principle of the excellent zoological systems that have come from the French in this century, and it is most completely demonstrated in comparative anatomy, as l’unité de plan, l’uniformité de l’élément anatomique. To discover it was also the chief business, or at any rate certainly the most laudable endeavor, of the nature-philosophers of the Schellingian school, who deserve some credit in this respect, even though in many cases their hunt for analogies in nature degenerates into mere facetiousness. But they have rightly demonstrated that same universal kinship and family likeness in the Ideas of inorganic nature as well, for example between electricity and magnetism, whose identity was later established, between chemical attraction and gravity, and the like. They have called attention in particular to the fact that polarity, that is, the splitting of a force into two qualitatively different, opposed activities that strive toward reunion, which for the most part reveals itself in space as a diverging in opposite directions, is a fundamental type of almost all appearances of nature, from the magnet and the crystal to man. In China, however, this knowledge has been current since the most ancient times, in the doctrine of the opposition of Yin and Yang.—Indeed, precisely because all the things of the world are the objectivity of one and the same will, and are consequently identical in their inner essence, there must be not only that unmistakable analogy among them, and in everything more imperfect the trace, intimation, and disposition of the nearest more perfect thing; but also, since all those forms belong only to the world as representation, we may even suppose that in the most universal forms of representation, in this proper framework of the appearing world, that is, in space and time, the fundamental type, the intimation, the disposition of everything that fills the forms may be found and demonstrated. It seems that an obscure knowledge of this gave rise to the Kabbala and to all the mathematical philosophy of the Pythagoreans, and also of the Chinese in the Y-king; and in that Schellingian school too, in its manifold efforts to bring to light the analogy among all the appearances of nature, we find several attempts, though unhappy ones, to derive laws of nature from the mere laws of space and time. Yet one cannot know how far a mind of genius will one day carry out both endeavors.

Now although the difference between appearance and thing in itself is never to be lost from sight, and the identity of the will objectified in all Ideas must therefore never be twisted (since it has determinate grades of its objectivity) into an identity of the individual Ideas themselves in which it appears, so that, for example, chemical or electrical attraction may never be traced back to attraction by gravity, even though their inner analogy is recognized and the former may be regarded as, so to speak, higher powers of the latter; just as little as the inner analogy in the structure of all animals entitles us to confuse and identify the species and, say, to declare the more perfect ones to be variations of the less perfect; and although, finally, the physiological functions too are never to be traced back to chemical or physical processes: yet, to justify this procedure within certain limits, we may assume the following with great probability.

When, among the appearances of the will on the lower grades of its objectification, that is, in the inorganic, several come into conflict with one another, each seeking, along the guiding thread of causality, to seize the available matter, there emerges from this strife the appearance of a higher Idea, which overpowers all the more imperfect ones that were there before, yet in such a way that it lets their essence continue in a subordinate fashion, by taking up into itself an analogue of it. This process is comprehensible only from the identity of the appearing will in all Ideas and from its striving toward ever higher objectification. Thus we see, for example, in the hardening of the bones an unmistakable analogue of crystallization, which originally governed the lime, although ossification is never to be traced back to crystallization. The analogy shows itself more faintly in the hardening of flesh. So too the mixing of the fluids in the animal body, and secretion, are an analogue of chemical mixture and separation; indeed the laws of the latter continue to operate there, but subordinated, greatly modified, overpowered by a higher Idea; for this reason merely chemical forces outside the organism will never yield such fluids; but “Encheiresin naturae,” chemistry calls it, mocks itself and doesn’t know how.

The more perfect Idea that issues from such a victory over several lower Ideas, or objectifications of the will, gains an entirely new character, precisely because it takes up into itself from each of those it has overpowered an analogue raised to a higher power: the will objectifies itself in a new and more distinct way. There arises, originally through generatio aequivoca, afterward through assimilation to the germ already present, organic sap, plant, animal, man. Thus from the strife of lower appearances there emerges the higher, which devours them all, yet also realizes the striving of all of them in a higher degree.—Here already, then, the law prevails: serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.

I wish I had been able to overcome, by clarity of presentation, the obscurity that attaches to the subject matter of these thoughts; but I see well enough that the reader’s own reflection must come greatly to my aid if I am not to remain uncomprehended or be misunderstood.—According to the view here given, we shall indeed be able to demonstrate in the organism the traces of chemical and physical modes of operation, but never to explain it from them; for it is by no means a phenomenon produced by the united working of such forces, that is, produced by accident, but a higher Idea, which has made those lower ones subject to itself through overpowering assimilation; for the one will that objectifies itself in all Ideas, in striving toward the highest possible objectification, here gives up the lower grades of its appearance, after a conflict among them, in order to appear all the more mightily on a higher one. No victory without struggle: since the higher Idea, or objectification of the will, can emerge only by overpowering the lower ones, it suffers the resistance of these, which, though brought into servitude, still always strive to attain independent and complete expression of their essence. As the magnet that has lifted a piece of iron maintains a continual struggle with gravity, which, as the lowest objectification of the will, has a more original right to the matter of that iron, and in which constant struggle the magnet even grows stronger, since the resistance, as it were, spurs it to greater exertion; so every appearance of the will, including the one that presents itself in the human organism, maintains an enduring struggle against the many physical and chemical forces which, as lower Ideas, have an earlier right to that matter. Hence the arm sinks that one has held up for a while by overpowering gravity; hence the comfortable feeling of health, which expresses the victory of the Idea of the self-conscious organism over the physical and chemical laws that originally govern the fluids of the body, is so often interrupted, indeed is really always accompanied by a certain greater or lesser discomfort arising from the resistance of those forces, and through which even the vegetative part of our life is constantly bound up with a faint suffering. Hence, too, digestion depresses all animal functions, because it claims the whole vital force for the overpowering of chemical forces of nature by assimilation. Hence, in general, the burden of physical life, the necessity of sleep and finally of death, since at last, favored by circumstances, those subjugated forces of nature win back from the organism, wearied by its very constancy of victory, the matter that was wrested from them, and attain to the unhindered presentation of their essence. One may therefore also say that every organism presents the Idea of which it is the image only after deduction of that part of its force which is spent on overpowering the lower Ideas that dispute the matter with it. This seems to have been in Jakob Böhm’s mind when he says somewhere that all the bodies of men and animals, indeed all plants, are really half dead. According as the organism succeeds more or less in overpowering those forces of nature that express the lower grades of the objectivity of the will, it becomes a more or less perfect expression of its Idea, that is, it stands nearer to or farther from the ideal to which, within its species, beauty belongs.

Thus everywhere in nature we see strife, struggle, and alternation of victory, and in this very fact we shall come to recognize more clearly the division against itself that is essential to the will. Every grade of the objectification of the will disputes with the others the matter, the space, the time. The persisting matter must constantly change its form, as mechanical, physical, chemical, and organic appearances, greedily pressing forward, wrest the matter from one another along the guiding thread of causality, each wanting to reveal its Idea. This strife can be traced through the whole of nature; indeed nature exists only through it: ει γαρ μη ην το νεικος εν τοις πραγμασιν, εν αν ην απαντα, ως φησιν Εμπεδοκλης· (nam si non inesset in rebus contentio, unum omnia essent, ut ait Empedocles. Arist. Metaph. B., 5): for this strife itself is, after all, only the revelation of the division against itself that is essential to the will. This universal struggle attains its clearest visibility in the animal world, which has the plant world for its nourishment, and in which in turn every animal becomes the prey and nourishment of another, that is, must yield the matter in which its Idea presented itself to the presentation of another Idea, since each animal can maintain its existence only through the constant suppression of an alien one. So the will to life throughout feeds on itself and in different shapes is its own nourishment, until finally the human race, because it overpowers all the others, regards nature as a manufactured article for its use; yet the same race also, as we shall find in the fourth book, reveals in itself that struggle, that self-division of the will, with the most fearful distinctness, and becomes homo homini lupus. Meanwhile we shall recognize the same strife, the same overpowering, equally on the low grades of the objectivity of the will. Many insects (especially the ichneumon flies) lay their eggs on the skin, indeed in the body, of the larvae of other insects, whose slow destruction is the first work of the hatching brood. The young polyp, which grows out of the old one as a branch and later separates from it, already fights with it, while still attached to it, over the prey that offers, so that one tears it from the other’s mouth (Trembley, Polypod. II, p. 110, and III, p. 165). But the most glaring example of this kind is furnished by the bulldog-ant of Australia: if one cuts it in two, a battle begins between the head part and the tail part; the former attacks the latter with its jaws, and the latter defends itself bravely by stinging the former; the battle usually lasts half an hour, until they die or are dragged away by other ants. The event takes place every time. (From a letter of Howitt, in the W. Journal, printed in Galignani’s Messenger of 17 Nov. 1855.) On the banks of the Missouri one sometimes sees a mighty oak so wound about, fettered, and laced, on trunk and all its branches, by a gigantic wild vine that it must wither as if suffocated. The same shows itself even on the lowest grades: for example, where through organic assimilation water and carbon are changed into plant sap, or plant or bread into blood, and so everywhere where, with the chemical forces limited to a subordinate mode of operation, animal secretion takes place; then also in inorganic nature, as when crystals that are shooting forth meet, cross, and interfere with one another so that they cannot show the purely crystallized form, so that almost every geode is the image of such a strife of the will on that so low grade of its objectification; or as when a magnet forces magnetism upon iron, in order to present its Idea here too; or as when galvanism overpowers elective affinities, decomposes the firmest compounds, and so cancels the chemical laws that the acid of a salt decomposed at the negative pole must go to the positive pole without being allowed to combine with the alkalis through which it passes on the way, or even merely to redden the litmus it meets. On the grand scale it shows itself in the relation between central body and planet: the latter, although in decided dependence, still always resists, just like the chemical forces in the organism; from which arises the constant tension between centripetal and centrifugal force, which keeps the structure of the universe in motion and is itself already an expression of that universal struggle, essential to the appearance of the will, which we are now considering. For since every body must be regarded as the appearance of a will, and will necessarily presents itself as a striving, the original state of every heavenly body balled into a sphere cannot be rest, but motion, a striving forward into infinite space, without rest and without goal. Neither the law of inertia nor that of causality opposes this; for since, according to the former, matter as such is indifferent to rest and motion, motion may be its original state just as well as rest. Hence, when we find it in motion, we are just as little entitled to presuppose that a state of rest preceded it and to ask for the cause of the onset of the motion as, conversely, if we found it at rest, we would have to presuppose a motion preceding it and to ask for the cause of its cessation. Hence no first impulse is to be sought for the centrifugal force; rather, in the planets, according to the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, it is a remnant of the original rotation of the central body, from which they separated when it contracted. To this body itself, however, motion is essential: it still rotates and at the same time flies onward in endless space, or perhaps circles about a larger central body invisible to us. This view agrees entirely with the astronomers’ conjecture of a central sun, and also with the observed advance of our whole solar system, perhaps also of the whole star cluster to which our sun belongs, from which finally a general advance of all the fixed stars together with the central sun is to be inferred. This, of course, loses all meaning in infinite space (since motion in absolute space is not distinguishable from rest), and precisely thereby, as already directly through the striving and flying without goal, becomes the expression of that nothingness, that lack of a final end, which at the close of this book we shall have to ascribe to the striving of the will in all its appearances; hence, too, endless space and endless time had to be the most universal and essential forms of its whole appearance, which exists to express its whole essence.—Finally, we can recognize the struggle we are considering, of all appearances of the will against one another, even in mere matter, regarded as such, in so far, that is, as the essence of its appearance is rightly stated by Kant as repulsive and attractive force; so that already matter has its existence only in a struggle of forces striving against each other. If we abstract from all chemical difference of matter, or think ourselves so far back in the chain of causes and effects that there is as yet no chemical difference, there remains to us mere matter, the world balled into a sphere, whose life, that is, objectification of the will, now consists in that struggle between the force of attraction and the force of repulsion, the former as gravity, pressing from all sides toward the center, the latter as impenetrability, whether through rigidity or elasticity, resisting it. This constant pressure and resistance may be regarded as the objectivity of the will on the very lowest grade, and already there it expresses the will’s character.

So here, on the lowest grade, we would see the will present itself as a blind impulse, a dark, dull urge, far from all immediate knowability. It is the simplest and weakest mode of its objectification. But as such a blind impulse and striving without knowledge it still appears in the whole of inorganic nature, in all the original forces which physics and chemistry are occupied in seeking out and whose laws they are occupied in learning, and each of which presents itself to us in millions of entirely similar, law-governed appearances, announcing no trace of individual character, but merely multiplied by time and space, that is, by the principium individuationis, as an image is multiplied by the facets of a glass.

Objectifying itself more distinctly from grade to grade, the will nevertheless still works wholly without knowledge, as a dark, driving force, even in the plant kingdom, where no longer causes proper but stimuli are the bond of its appearances; and so finally also in the vegetative part of the animal appearance, in the production and formation of every animal and in the maintenance of its inner economy, where still mere stimuli necessarily determine its appearance. The ever higher grades of the objectivity of the will lead finally to the point where the individual that presents the Idea could no longer obtain its nourishment, which has to be assimilated, by mere movement on stimuli; for such a stimulus must be waited for, whereas here the nourishment is of a more specially determined kind, and with the ever-growing manifoldness of appearances the crowding and confusion has become so great that they disturb one another, and the chance on which the individual moved by mere stimuli must depend for its nourishment would be too unfavorable. The nourishment must therefore be sought out and chosen, from the point where the animal has wrenched itself free from the egg or the womb in which it vegetated without knowledge. Thereby movement on motives, and for the sake of these knowledge, becomes necessary here; and knowledge accordingly enters as an aid, μηχανη, required at this grade of the objectification of the will for the maintenance of the individual and the propagation of the species. It comes forth, represented by the brain or a larger ganglion, just as every other striving or determination of the objectifying will is represented by an organ, that is, presents itself for the representation as an organ [19].—But with this aid, this μηχανη, the world as representation stands there at one stroke, with all its forms, object and subject, time, space, plurality, and causality. The world now shows its second side. Hitherto mere will, it is now at the same time representation, object of the knowing subject. The will, which up to this point pursued its drive in the dark, most surely and infallibly, has on this grade kindled a light for itself, as a means that became necessary to remove the disadvantage which would arise, precisely for the most perfected of its appearances, from their crowding and complicated constitution. The infallible certainty and lawfulness with which the will had worked until now in inorganic and merely vegetative nature rested on its being active solely in its original essence, as blind impulse, as will, without help, but also without disturbance, from a second, entirely different world, the world as representation, which, though only the image of the will’s own essence, is yet of an entirely different nature and now intervenes in the connection of its appearances. Thereby its infallible certainty comes to an end. Animals are already exposed to illusion, to deception. [20] On this see ch. 22 of the second volume; also my essay “On the Will in Nature,” p. 54 ff. and pp. 70–79 of the first edition, or p. 46 ff. and pp. 63–72 of the second. They have, however, only intuitive representations, no concepts, no reflection; they are therefore bound to the present and cannot take the future into account.—It seems as if this knowledge without reason had not in all cases been sufficient for its purpose and at times had, as it were, needed a helping hand. For there presents itself to us the very remarkable phenomenon that the blind working of the will and the working illumined by knowledge, in two kinds of appearances, reach over, in a most surprising way, each into the domain of the other. First, namely, we find in the midst of the activity of animals, which is guided by intuitive knowledge and its motives, an activity carried out without these, that is, with the necessity of the blindly working will: in the constructive instincts, which, guided by no motive and no knowledge, have the look of bringing their works to completion even on abstract, rational motives. The other case, the opposite of this, is where, conversely, the light of knowledge penetrates into the workshop of the blindly working will and illumines the vegetative functions of the human organism: in magnetic clairvoyance.—Finally, where the will has reached the highest grade of its objectification, the knowledge of the understanding that dawned on the animals, to which the senses supply the data from which mere intuition, bound to the present, arises, no longer suffices: man, that complicated, many-sided, plastic, most needy being, exposed to countless injuries, had, in order to subsist, to be illumined by a twofold knowledge; a higher power, as it were, of intuitive knowledge had to be added to this, a reflection of it: reason, as the faculty of abstract concepts. With this came reflective awareness, containing a survey of the future and the past and, as a consequence of this, deliberation, care, the capacity for premeditated action independent of the present, and finally also fully distinct consciousness of one’s own decisions of will as such. Now if with merely intuitive knowledge the possibility of illusion and deception had already entered, whereby the earlier infallibility in the will’s knowledgeless urge was canceled, so that instinct and constructive impulse, as expressions of the will without knowledge, had to come to its aid in the midst of the expressions guided by knowledge; then with the entry of reason that certainty and unerringness of the expressions of the will (which at the other extreme, in inorganic nature, even appears as strict lawfulness) is almost wholly lost: instinct falls entirely back; deliberation, which is now to replace everything, begets (as set forth in the first book) wavering and uncertainty; error becomes possible, which in many cases hinders the adequate objectification of the will through deeds. For although the will has already taken in character its determinate and unalterable direction, in accordance with which the willing itself occurs infallibly on the occasion of the motives, yet error can falsify its expressions, in that illusory motives then flow in like real ones and cancel these [21]: as, for example, when superstition substitutes imagined motives that force a man to a course of action exactly opposite to the way in which his will would otherwise express itself under the existing circumstances: Agamemnon slaughters his daughter; a miser dispenses alms out of pure egoism, in the hope of a hundredfold repayment someday, and so on.

Knowledge in general, rational as well as merely intuitive, thus proceeds originally from the will itself, belongs to the essence of the higher grades of its objectification as a mere μηχανη, a means for the maintenance of the individual and the species, just like any organ of the body. Destined originally, then, for the service of the will, for the accomplishment of its ends, it also remains almost throughout wholly subservient to it: so in all animals and in almost all men. Yet we shall see in the third book how in individual men knowledge can withdraw from this servitude, throw off its yoke, and subsist purely for itself, free from all the aims of willing, as the mere clear mirror of the world, from which art proceeds; and finally, in the fourth book, how through this kind of knowledge, when it reacts upon the will, the self-²² The Scholastics therefore said quite rightly: Causa finalis movet non secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. See Suarez, Disp. metaph. disp. XXIII, sect. 7 et 8. suppression of the will can occur, that is, resignation, which is the final goal, indeed the innermost essence of all virtue and holiness, and deliverance from the world.

28 We have considered the great manifoldness and diversity of the appearances in which the will objectifies itself; indeed, we have seen their endless and irreconcilable struggle against one another. Nevertheless, according to our whole exposition so far, the will itself, as thing in itself, is by no means comprised in that plurality, that change. The diversity of the (Platonic) Ideas, that is, of the gradations of objectification, the multitude of individuals in which each of these presents itself, the struggle of forms for matter: all this does not touch the will, but is only the manner and way of its objectification, and only through this has an indirect relation to it, by virtue of which it belongs to the expression of its essence for representation. As a magic lantern shows many and varied pictures, though it is only one and the same flame that gives visibility to them all, so in all the manifold appearances which fill the world side by side, or displace one another in succession as events, it is yet only the one will that appears, whose visibility, whose objectivity, all this is, and which remains unmoved in the midst of that change: it alone is the thing in itself; every object, however, is appearance, phenomenon, to speak in Kant’s language.—Although in man, as (Platonic) Idea, the will finds its most distinct and most perfect objectification, yet this alone could not express its essence. In order to appear in its proper significance, the Idea of man could not present itself alone and torn loose, but had to be accompanied by the descending series through all the forms of animals, through the plant kingdom, down to the inorganic: only all of these together complete the full objectification of the will; they are presupposed by the Idea of man as the blossoms of a tree presuppose leaves, branches, trunk, and root: they form a pyramid whose apex is man. One may also, if one takes pleasure in comparisons, say: their appearance accompanies that of man as necessarily as full light is accompanied by all the gradual gradations of half-shadow through which it loses itself in darkness; or one may call them the echo of man and say: animal and plant are the descending fifth and third of man, the inorganic kingdom is the lower octave. The whole truth of this last simile, however, will become clear to us only when, in the following book, we try to fathom the deep significance of music, and it will show itself to us how the melody, advancing in connection through high, lightly moving tones, is in a certain sense to be regarded as representing the life and striving of man, which has connection through reflection, while the unconnected ripieno voices and the heavily moving bass, from which the harmony necessary to the completeness of music proceeds, depict the rest of animal and knowledgeless nature. But of this in its place, where it will no longer sound so paradoxical.—We find, however, that inner necessity of the gradation of its appearances, inseparable from the adequate objectivity of the will, expressed in the whole of these appearances also by an outer necessity, namely that by virtue of which man needs the animals for his maintenance, these in gradation one another, and then also the plants, which in turn need the soil, the water, the chemical elements and their mixtures, the planet, the sun, the rotation and revolution about it, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and so on.—At bottom this springs from the fact that the will must feed on itself, because there is nothing outside it and it is a hungry will. Hence the hunt, the anxiety, and the suffering.

As the knowledge of the unity of the will, as thing in itself, in the infinite diversity and manifoldness of appearances alone gives the true key to that wondrous, unmistakable analogy of all the productions of nature, that family likeness that lets us regard them as variations on one and the same theme, which is not itself given; so likewise, through the clearly and deeply grasped knowledge of that harmony, that essential connection of all the parts of the world, that necessity of their gradation, which we have just considered, a true and sufficient insight will open to us into the inner essence and significance of the undeniable purposiveness of all organic products of nature, which we presuppose even a priori when we consider and judge them.

This purposiveness is of two kinds: in part an inner one, that is, an agreement of all the parts of a single organism so ordered that its maintenance and that of its species result from it, and that therefore presents itself as the end of that arrangement. In part, however, the purposiveness is an outer one, namely a relation of inorganic nature to organic nature in general, or also of individual parts of organic nature to one another, which makes possible the maintenance of the whole of organic nature, or of individual animal species, and which therefore confronts our judgment as a means to this end.

The inner purposiveness now enters the context of our consideration as follows. If, according to what has been said so far, all the differences of forms in nature and all the plurality of individuals belong not to the will but only to its objectivity and the form of this, it follows necessarily that the will is indivisible and wholly present in every appearance, although the grades of its objectification, the (Platonic) Ideas, are very different. For easier comprehension we can regard these different Ideas as individual acts of will, simple in themselves, in which its essence expresses itself more or less; the individuals, however, are again appearances of the Ideas, thus of those acts, in time and space and plurality.—Now on the lowest grades of objectivity such an act (or Idea) retains its unity even in the appearance; while on the higher grades, in order to appear, it needs a whole series of states and developments in time, which, all taken together, first complete the expression of its essence. Thus, for example, the Idea that reveals itself in some universal force of nature has always only a single utterance, even though this presents itself differently according to the external conditions; otherwise its identity could not be demonstrated at all, which is done precisely by separating off the difference that arises merely from the external conditions. Likewise the crystal has only one manifestation of life, its shooting, which afterward has its fully sufficient and exhaustive expression in the solidified form, the corpse of that momentary life. The plant, however, already does not express the Idea whose appearance it is at one stroke and by a single utterance, but in a succession of developments of its organs, in time. The animal not only develops its organism in the same way, in a succession of often very different forms (metamorphosis); but this form itself, though already objectivity of the will on this grade, does not suffice for the complete presentation of its Idea; rather this is first completed by the actions of the animal, in which its empirical character, which is the same in the whole species, expresses itself and which is first the complete revelation of the Idea, whereby the latter presupposes the determinate organism as its fundamental condition. In man the empirical character is already peculiar to each individual (indeed, as we shall see in the fourth book, even to the point of the complete suppression of the character of the species, namely through the self-suppression of the whole of willing). What is recognized as empirical character through the necessary development in time and the consequent breaking up into single actions is, when we abstract from this temporal form of appearance, the intelligible character, in Kant’s expression; and in demonstrating this distinction and in presenting the relation between freedom and necessity, that is, really between the will as thing in itself and its appearance in time, Kant shows his immortal merit especially splendidly [23]. The intelligible character therefore coincides with the Idea, or, still more properly, with the original act of will that reveals itself in it. [24] See “Critique of Pure Reason, Solution of the Cosmological Ideas of the Totality of the Derivation of Cosmic Events,” pp. 560–586 of the fifth and p. 532 ff. of the first edition, and “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, pp. 169–179; Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 224 ff. Cf. my treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, § 43. To this extent, then, not only the empirical character of every man, but also that of every animal species, indeed of every plant species and even of every original force of inorganic nature, is to be regarded as the appearance of an intelligible character, that is, of an extra-temporal, indivisible act of will.—Incidentally, I should like to draw attention here to the naïveté with which every plant expresses its whole character by its mere form and openly lays it out, reveals its whole being and willing, which makes the physiognomies of plants so interesting; whereas the animal, in order to be known as to its Idea, must already be observed in its doings and goings-on, and man must be thoroughly explored and tested, since reason makes him capable of dissimulation to a high degree. The animal is just as much more naive than man as the plant is more naive than the animal. In the animal we see the will to life, as it were, more naked than in man, where it is so overlaid with knowledge, and moreover veiled by the capacity for dissimulation, that its true essence comes to light almost only by accident and in places. Quite naked, but also much weaker, it shows itself in the plant, as mere blind urge to existence, without aim or goal. For the plant reveals its whole essence at the first glance and with perfect innocence, which does not suffer from its carrying its genitals, which in all animals have been given the most hidden place, displayed on its summit.

This innocence of the plant rests on its lack of knowledge: guilt lies not in willing, but in willing with knowledge. Every plant tells first of all of its home, of the climate of that home and the nature of the soil from which it has sprung. Hence even someone of little practice easily recognizes whether an exotic plant belongs to the tropical or the temperate zone, and whether it grows in water, in a swamp, on mountains, or on the heath. Besides this, however, every plant also expresses the special will of its species and says something that cannot be expressed in any other language.—But now to the application of what has been said to the teleological consideration of organisms, so far as it concerns their inner purposiveness. If in inorganic nature the Idea, which is everywhere to be regarded as a single act of will, reveals itself also only in a single and always uniform utterance, and one can therefore say that here the empirical character partakes directly of the unity of the intelligible, coincides with it, as it were, for which reason no inner purposiveness can show itself here; if, on the other hand, all organisms present their Idea through a succession of developments one after another, which is conditioned by a manifoldness of different parts side by side, so that the sum of the utterances of their empirical character is the expression of the intelligible only when taken together; then this necessary side-by-side of the parts and succession of the development does not cancel the unity of the appearing Idea, of the act of will that utters itself; rather this unity now finds its expression in the necessary relation and concatenation of those parts and developments with one another, according to the law of causality. Since it is the single and indivisible, and just thereby wholly self-consistent will that reveals itself in the whole Idea as in one act, its appearance, although diverging into a diversity of parts and states, must yet show that unity again in a thoroughgoing agreement of these: this happens through a necessary relation and dependence of all the parts on one another, whereby the unity of the Idea is restored also in the appearance. Accordingly we now recognize those different parts and functions of the organism reciprocally as means and end of one another, but the organism itself as the final end of all. Consequently, both the diverging of the Idea, simple in itself, into the plurality of the parts and states of the organism, on the one hand, and the restoration of its unity through the necessary connection of those parts and functions, in that they are cause and effect, thus means and end, of one another, on the other, are peculiar and essential not to the appearing will as such, the thing in itself, but only to its appearance in space, time, and causality (all of them mere forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the form of appearance). They belong to the world as representation, not to the world as will: they belong to the manner and way in which the will becomes object, that is, representation, on this grade of its objectivity. Whoever has penetrated into the sense of this perhaps somewhat difficult discussion will now really understand the doctrine of Kant, which comes to this, that both the purposiveness of the organic and the lawfulness of the inorganic are first brought into nature by our understanding, and that both therefore belong only to the appearance, not to the thing in itself. The wonder mentioned above at the unfailing constancy of the lawfulness of inorganic nature is essentially the same as the wonder at the purposiveness of organic nature: for in both cases it is only the sight of the original unity of the Idea, which for the appearance had assumed the form of plurality and diversity, that surprises us [25].

As for the second kind of purposiveness according to the division made above, the outer, which shows itself not in the inner economy of organisms but in the support and help that they receive from outside, both from inorganic nature and one from another, this too finds its explanation in general in the discussion just presented, since the whole world, with all its appearances, is the objectivity of the one and indivisible will, the Idea that stands to all other Ideas as the harmony to the single voices, so that this unity of the will must show itself also in the agreement of all its appearances with one another. But we can raise this insight to much greater distinctness if we go somewhat more closely into the phenomena of that outer purposiveness and agreement of the different parts of nature with one another, a discussion which will at the same time cast light back on the preceding. We shall best arrive at this by considering the following analogy.

The character of every individual man, insofar as it is thoroughly individual and not wholly comprised in that of the species, may be regarded as a special Idea, corresponding to a peculiar act of objectification of the will. This act itself would then be his intelligible character, while his empirical character [26] Compare “On the Will in Nature,” at the end of the section “Comparative Anatomy.” would be the appearance of it. The empirical character is wholly and entirely determined by the intelligible, which is groundless will, that is, will that as thing in itself is not subject to the principle of sufficient reason (the form of appearance). The empirical character must furnish in a course of life the image of the intelligible, and cannot turn out otherwise than the essence of the latter requires. But this determination extends only to what is essential, not to what is inessential in the course of life that thus appears. To this inessential belongs the closer determination of the events and actions that are the material on which the empirical character shows itself. These are determined by external circumstances, which supply the motives to which the character reacts according to its nature; and since they can be very different, the external shaping of the appearance of the empirical character, that is, the determinate factual or historical shaping of the course of life, will have to be governed by their influence. This can turn out very different, even though what is essential in this appearance, its content, remains the same: thus, for example, it is inessential whether one plays for nuts or for crowns; but whether one cheats at the game or proceeds honestly, that is the essential: this is determined by the intelligible character, that by external influence. As the same theme can present itself in a hundred variations, so can the same character in a hundred very different courses of life. But however various the external influence may be, the empirical character expressed in the course of life must, however it turns out, objectify the intelligible exactly, since it adapts its objectification to the material of factual circumstances that it finds ready to hand.—Something analogous to that influence of external circumstances upon the course of life, which is essentially determined by the character, we must assume if we want to conceive how the will, in the original act of its objectification, determines the different Ideas in which it objectifies itself, that is, the different forms of natural beings of every kind, among which it distributes its objectification and which must therefore necessarily have a relation to one another in appearance. We must assume that among all those appearances of the one will a universal mutual adapting and accommodating to one another took place; though in this, as we shall soon see more clearly, all determination of time is to be left out, since the Idea lies outside time. Accordingly every appearance had to adapt itself to the surroundings into which it entered, but these in turn also to it, even if the latter occupies a much later place in time; and everywhere we see this consensus naturae. Every plant is therefore suited to its soil and climate, every animal to its element and to the prey that is to become its nourishment, and is also somehow, to some extent, protected against its natural pursuer; the eye is suited to light and its refrangibility, the lung and the blood to the air, the swim-bladder to the water, the eye of the seal to the change of its medium, the water-holding cells in the stomach of the camel to the drought of the African deserts, the sail of the nautilus to the wind that is to drive its little ship, and so on down to the most special and astonishing external purposivenesses [27]. Now, however, in all this we must abstract from every temporal relation, since such relations can concern only the appearance of the Idea, not the Idea itself. Accordingly that mode of explanation is to be used backward as well, and we must assume not only that every species accommodated itself to the circumstances it found, but that these circumstances, which preceded it in time, themselves likewise took account of the beings that were still to come. For it is indeed one and the same will that objectifies itself in the whole world: it knows no time, since this form of the principle of sufficient reason belongs neither to it nor to its original objectivity, the Ideas, but only to the manner in which these are known by the individuals, themselves transient, that is, to the appearance of the Ideas. Hence in our present consideration of the manner in which the objectification of the will is distributed among the Ideas, the temporal sequence is wholly without significance, and the Ideas whose appearances, in accordance with the law of causality to which as such they are subject, entered earlier into the temporal sequence, have thereby [28] See “On the Will in Nature,” the section “Comparative Anatomy.” no precedence over those whose appearance enters later, which are rather precisely the most perfect objectifications of the will, to which the earlier ones had to adapt themselves just as much as these to those. Thus the course of the planets, the inclination of the ecliptic, the rotation of the earth, the distribution of land and sea, the atmosphere, light, warmth, and all similar phenomena, which are in nature what the ground bass is in harmony, adapted themselves, as if by presentiment, to the coming species of living beings, whose bearer and sustainer they were to become. In the same way the soil adapted itself to the nourishment of plants, these to the nourishment of animals, these to the nourishment of other animals, just as well as, conversely, all these in turn to those. All parts of nature come to meet one another, because it is one will that appears in all of them, while the temporal sequence is wholly alien to its original and alone adequate objectivity (the following book explains this expression), the Ideas. Even now, when the species have only to maintain themselves and no longer to come into being, we see here and there such a provision of nature extending into the future, really abstracting, as it were, from the temporal sequence, an accommodating of what is there to what is still to come. So the bird builds the nest for young it does not yet know; the beaver erects a structure whose purpose is unknown to it; the ant, the hamster, the bee gather stores for a winter that is unknown to them; the spider and the ant-lion set up, as if with deliberate cunning, traps for the future prey they do not know; insects lay their eggs where the future brood will in future find nourishment. When, about the time of flowering, the female flower of the dioecious Valisneria unwinds the spiral coils of its stalk, by which it was held until then at the bottom of the water, and thereby rises to the surface, at precisely that moment the male flower, which grows on a short stalk at the bottom of the water, tears itself away from this and so, at the sacrifice of its life, reaches the surface, where, floating about, it seeks out the female flower, which then, after fertilization has taken place, draws itself back to the bottom by contraction of its spiral, where the fruit develops [29]. Here too I must once more mention the larva of the male stag beetle, which bites the hole in the wood for its metamorphosis twice as large as the female does, in order to gain room for the future horns. In general, then, the instinct of animals gives us the best illustration of the rest of the teleology of nature. For as instinct is an acting like that according to a concept of an end, and yet wholly without it; so all forming by nature is like that according to a concept of an end, and yet wholly without it. For in the external as in the internal teleology of nature, what we have to think as means and end is everywhere only the appearance, spread apart for our mode of knowledge in space and time, of the unity of the one will, which is so far in agreement with itself.

Meanwhile the mutual adapting and accommodating of the appearances that springs from this unity cannot nevertheless extinguish the inner conflict presented above, appearing in the universal struggle of nature, which is essential to the will. That harmony goes only so far as to make possible the continued existence of the world and its beings, which without it would long since have perished. It therefore extends only to the continuance of the species and of the general conditions of life, not to that of the individuals. If, then, by virtue of that harmony and accommodation, the species in the organic and the universal forces of nature in the inorganic exist side by side and even support one another, the inner conflict of the will objectified through all those Ideas shows itself, on the other hand, in the unceasing war of extermination among the individuals of those species and in the constant wrestling of the appearances of those forces of nature with one another, as set forth above. The arena and object of this struggle is matter, which they strive to wrest from one another, as well as space and time, whose union through the form of causality is really matter, as demonstrated in the first book [30].

31 Chatin, sur la Valisneria spiralis, in the Comptes rendus de l’acad. d. sc., No. 13, 1855.

32 On this see chs. 26 and 27 of the second volume.

29 I conclude here the second main part of my exposition, in the hope that, so far as is possible in the very first communication of a thought never there before, which therefore cannot be wholly free from the traces of the individuality in which it was first engendered, I have succeeded in imparting the distinct certainty that this world in which we live and have our being is, in its whole essence, through and through will and at the same time through and through representation; that this representation, already as such, presupposes a form, namely object and subject, and is therefore relative; and that if we ask what remains after the cancellation of this form and of all the forms subordinate to it, which the principle of sufficient reason expresses, this, as something toto genere different from representation, can be nothing other than will, which is accordingly the proper thing in itself. Everyone finds themselves to be this will, in which the inner essence of the world consists, just as they also find themselves to be the knowing subject, whose representation is the whole world, which in this respect has existence only in relation to their consciousness, as its necessary bearer. Everyone is thus, in this double respect, the whole world itself, the microcosm, and finds both sides of it whole and complete in themselves. And what they thus recognize as their own essence also exhausts the essence of the whole world, the macrocosm: it too, therefore, like themselves, is through and through will and through and through representation, and nothing more remains. So we see here the philosophy of Thales, which considered the macrocosm, and that of Socrates, which considered the microcosm, coincide, since the object of both proves to be the same.—The whole knowledge communicated in the first two books will, however, gain greater completeness, and thereby also greater certainty, through the two books still to follow, in which, it is hoped, many a question that may have been raised, distinctly or indistinctly, in our consideration so far will find its sufficient answer.

Meanwhile one such question may still be discussed specially, since it can really be raised only as long as one has not yet wholly penetrated into the sense of the exposition so far, and precisely to that extent can serve to elucidate it. It is the following. Every will is will toward something, has an object, an aim of its willing: what then does that will finally want, or what does it strive after, which is presented to us as the essence in itself of the world?—This question rests, like so many others, on a confusion of the thing in itself with the appearance. To the latter alone, not to the former, the principle of sufficient reason extends, of which the law of motivation is also a form. Everywhere a ground can be given only for appearances as such, for individual things, never for the will itself, nor for the Idea in which it objectifies itself adequately. Thus for every single movement, or change in general, in nature, a cause is to be sought, that is, a state that necessarily brought it about; but never for the force of nature itself, which reveals itself in that movement and in countless similar appearances: and it is therefore real unintelligence, arising from lack of reflective awareness, to ask for a cause of gravity, of electricity, and so on. Only if it had perhaps been shown that gravity and electricity were not original, peculiar forces of nature, but only modes of appearance of a more general, already known force of nature, could one ask for the cause that makes this force of nature produce here the appearance of gravity, of electricity. All this has been set forth at length above. In just the same way every single act of will of a knowing individual (which is itself only appearance of the will as thing in itself) necessarily has a motive, without which that act would never occur; but as the material cause contains merely the determination that at this time, in this place, in this matter, a manifestation of this or that force of nature must occur, so too the motive determines only the act of will of a knowing being, at this time, in this place, under these circumstances, as something wholly individual; but by no means that this being wills at all and wills in this way: that is manifestation of its intelligible character, which, as the will itself, the thing in itself, is groundless, lying as it does outside the domain of the principle of sufficient reason. Hence every human being also has constantly aims and motives by which they guide their conduct, and can always give an account of their single doings: but if one asked them why they will at all, or why they want to exist at all, they would have no answer; indeed the question would seem absurd to them: and in this precisely the consciousness would really express itself that they themselves are nothing but will, whose willing in general thus goes without saying and needs the closer determination by motives only in its single acts, for each point of time.

In truth the absence of all aim, of all limits, belongs to the essence of the will in itself, which is an endless striving. This was already touched upon above, in mentioning centrifugal force; it also reveals itself most simply on the very lowest grade of the objectivity of the will, namely in gravity, whose constant striving, with the manifest impossibility of a final goal, lies before our eyes. For even if, according to its will, all existing matter were united in one lump, still within it gravity, striving toward the center, would be fighting with impenetrability, as rigidity or elasticity. The striving of matter can therefore always only be checked, never by any means fulfilled or satisfied. But precisely so it is with all the striving of all the appearances of the will. Every goal reached is again the beginning of a new course, and so on to infinity. The plant raises its appearance from the germ through stem and leaf to blossom and fruit, which again is only the beginning of a new germ, of a new individual, which once more runs through the old course, and so through infinite time. Such, too, is the course of life of the animal: procreation is its summit, after reaching which the life of the first individual sinks, quickly or slowly, while a new one guarantees to nature the maintenance of the species and repeats the same appearance. Indeed, the constant renewal of the matter of every organism must also be regarded as the mere appearance of this constant urge and change, a renewal which the physiologists now cease to hold to be a necessary replacement of the material consumed in movement, since the possible wear of the machine can by no means be an equivalent for the constant inflow through nutrition: Eternal becoming, endless flux, belongs to the revelation of the essence of the will. The same shows itself finally also in human strivings and wishes, which always delude us with the prospect that their fulfillment is the final goal of willing; but as soon as they are attained they no longer look the same, and are therefore soon forgotten, antiquated, and really always, though not admittedly, laid aside as vanished illusions; we are happy enough if something to wish and strive for remains, so that the game of the constant transition from wish to satisfaction, and from this to a new wish, whose rapid course is called happiness and the slow one suffering, may be kept up, and not fall into that stagnation which shows itself as fearful, life-benumbing boredom, a languid yearning without a definite object, a deadening languor.—According to all this, the will, where knowledge illumines it, always knows what it wills now, what it wills here; but never what it wills in general: every single act has an end; the whole of willing has none: just as every single natural appearance is determined for its occurrence at this place, at this time, by a sufficient cause, whereas the force that manifests itself in it has no cause at all, since such a force is a grade of the appearance of the thing in itself, of the groundless will.—The sole self-knowledge of the will as a whole, however, is the representation as a whole, the entire intuitive world. It is its objectivity, its revelation, its mirror. What it declares in this capacity will be the subject of our further consideration [33].

34 On this see ch. 28 of the second volume.

Plain English translation

Mouseia's complete machine-assisted Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same corrected German text of the 1859 third edition, then reviewed section by section against that German base and corrected, with the printed page consulted wherever a reading was in doubt. Footnote numbers are this edition's own, assigned in reading order, so note calls and the notes they point to can differ; a few notes the scan cut short end where the printed page ends.

The First Consideration of the World as Will: The Objectification of the Will.

Nos habitat, non tartara, sed nec sidera coeli: Spiritus, in nobis qui viget, illa facit.

17 In the first book we looked at representation only as such, so only in its general form. As for abstract representation, the concept, we did come to know it in its content too, in that it gets all its content and meaning solely from its relation to intuitive representation. Without that relation it would be worthless and empty. So, pointed wholly toward intuitive representation, we will want to learn its content as well, its closer determinations and the shapes it presents to us. We will especially want information about its real meaning, the meaning that is otherwise only felt. Because of this meaning these images do not pass by us wholly strange and saying nothing, as they otherwise would have to. They speak to us directly, are understood, and take on an interest that claims our whole being.

We turn our gaze to mathematics, natural science and philosophy, each of which lets us hope that it will give part of the information we want.—But first of all we find philosophy to be a monster with many heads, each speaking a different language. They are not all in disagreement with each other on the point raised here, the meaning of that intuitive representation. For, with the exception of the skeptics and idealists, the others speak, in the main, fairly much alike of an object that lies at the ground of the representation. This object is supposed to be different from the representation in its whole being and essence, and yet like it in every respect, as one egg is like another. That will not help us, however. We cannot tell such an object from the representation at all. We find that the two are one and the same, since every object always and forever presupposes a subject and so remains representation. We have also recognized that being an object belongs to the most general form of representation, which is just the split into object and subject. Moreover, the principle of sufficient reason, which people appeal to here, is also for us only a form of representation, namely the lawful connection of one representation with another. It is not the connection of the whole series of representations, finite or endless, with something that is not representation at all and so cannot be represented.—Of skeptics and idealists, however, we spoke above, in discussing the dispute over the reality of the external world.

Suppose we look to mathematics for the closer knowledge we want of this intuitive representation, which we have come to know only quite generally, in mere form. Mathematics will speak to us of those representations only so far as they fill time and space, that is, so far as they are magnitudes. It will state the how many and how large very exactly. But this is always only relative, that is, a comparison of one representation with others, and only in that one-sided respect of magnitude. So this too will not be the information we mainly seek.

Finally, if we look at the wide field of natural science, divided into many areas, we can first distinguish two main divisions of it. It is either description of shapes, which I call morphology, or explanation of changes, which I call etiology. The first considers the lasting forms, the second the changing matter, according to the laws of its passage from one form into another. The first is what is called natural history, in its whole extent, though the name is not strictly right. Especially as botany and zoology, it teaches us to know the various organic, and thereby firmly determined, shapes that persist through the unceasing change of individuals. These make up a large part of the content of intuitive representation. Natural history classifies them, separates them, unites them and orders them in natural and artificial systems. It brings them under concepts that make an overview and knowledge of all of them possible. It also shows an analogy that runs through all of them, infinitely shaded, in the whole and in the parts (unité de plan), by which they are like very various variations on a theme that is not given. The passage of matter into those shapes, that is, the coming-to-be of individuals, is not a main part of the study, since each individual comes from one like itself through generation. Generation is equally mysterious everywhere, and so far it escapes clear knowledge. The little that is known about it finds its place in physiology, which already belongs to etiological natural science. Mineralogy, which belongs mainly to morphology, already leans toward etiological science too, especially where it becomes geology. Etiology proper includes all those branches of natural science in which the knowledge of cause and effect is the main thing. These teach how, by an unfailing rule, a certain other state of matter necessarily follows a given state; how a certain change necessarily conditions and brings about another, definite one. This showing is called explanation. Here we find mainly mechanics, physics, chemistry and physiology.

But when we give ourselves over to their teaching, we soon notice that the information we mainly seek comes to us as little from etiology as from morphology. Morphology puts before us countless shapes, infinitely varied and yet related by an unmistakable family likeness. For us they are representations that stay forever strange along this path and, looked at only so, stand before us like hieroglyphs not understood.—Etiology, on the other hand, teaches us that, by the law of cause and effect, this particular state of matter brings about that other one, and with that it has explained the state and done its part. In reality, though, it does nothing more than show the lawful order in which states occur in space and time, and teach, for all cases, what appearance must occur at this time in this place. So it fixes their place in time and space, according to a law whose definite content experience has taught, but whose general form and necessity we are aware of independently of experience. About the inner essence of any of those appearances, however, we get not the slightest information from this. That essence is called force of nature, and lies outside the territory of etiological explanation. Etiological explanation calls the unchanging constancy with which the expression of such a force occurs, whenever the conditions known to it are present, a law of nature. This law of nature, these conditions, this occurrence at a definite place at a definite time, are all that etiology knows or ever can know. The force itself that expresses itself, the inner essence of the appearances that occur according to those laws, remains forever a mystery to it, something wholly strange and unknown, in the simplest appearance as in the most complicated. For although etiology has so far reached its aim most completely in mechanics and least completely in physiology, even so the force by which a stone falls to the earth or one body pushes another away is, in its inner essence, no less strange and mysterious to us than the force that produces the movements and growth of an animal. Mechanics presupposes matter, gravity, impenetrability, the communicability of motion by impact, rigidity and so on as unfathomable. It calls them forces of nature, and calls their necessary and regular appearing under certain conditions a law of nature. Only after that does it begin its explanation. That explanation consists in stating faithfully and with mathematical exactness how, where and when each force expresses itself, and in tracing every appearance that comes up back to one of those forces. Physics, chemistry and physiology do the same in their territory, except that they presuppose much more and accomplish less. Accordingly, even the most perfect etiological explanation of the whole of nature would never be more than a list of inexplicable forces, together with a sure statement of the rule by which their appearances occur in time and space, follow one another and give way to one another. But it would have to leave the inner essence of the forces that thus appear always unexplained, because the law it follows does not lead there, and stop at the appearance and its order. In this respect it could be compared to a cross-section of a piece of marble, which shows many kinds of veins side by side, but does not let us see the course of those veins through the inside of the marble up to that surface. Or, if I may allow myself a joking comparison because it is more striking: with the completed etiology of the whole of nature, the philosophical inquirer would still always feel like someone who, without knowing how, had ended up in a wholly unknown company. One member after another presents another to this person as their friend and cousin, and so makes them sufficiently acquainted. But the person, while assuring each one presented of being glad to meet them, would constantly have the question on their lips: “But how the devil did I come to be in this whole company?”

So etiology too can never give us the desired information about those appearances, which we know only as our representations, information that would lead us beyond them. For after all its explanations they still stand before us as mere representations whose meaning we do not understand, wholly strange. The causal connection gives only the rule and relative order of their occurrence in space and time, but does not teach us to know more closely what thus occurs. Moreover, the law of causality itself is valid only for representations, for objects of a certain class, and only on the presupposition of those does it have any meaning. So it too, like these objects themselves, exists only in relation to the subject, that is, conditionally. That is why it is known just as well when one starts from the subject, that is, a priori, as when one starts from the object, that is, a posteriori, as Kant has taught us.

What drives us to inquire now, however, is just that it is not enough for us to know that we have representations, that they are such and such, and are connected according to these and those laws, whose general expression is always the principle of sufficient reason. We want to know the meaning of those representations. We ask whether this world is nothing more than representation. In that case it would have to pass by us like an insubstantial dream or a ghostly phantom of the air, not worth our attention. Or is it something else, something besides, and what then is that? This much is equally certain: that what is asked after must be something wholly and in its whole essence fundamentally different from representation. So its forms and laws must be wholly strange to it. So, starting from representation, one cannot reach it along the thread of those laws that only connect objects, representations, with one another; and those laws are the forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

We already see here that the essence of things can never be got at from outside. However one inquires, one gains nothing but images and names. One is like someone walking around a castle, looking in vain for an entrance and meanwhile sketching the fronts. And yet this is the path that all philosophers before me have taken.

18 In fact, the meaning of the world that stands before me only as my representation would never be found. Neither would the passage from that world, as mere representation of the knowing subject, to whatever else it may be. That would be so if the inquirer were nothing more than the purely knowing subject (a winged angel’s head with no body). But the inquirer is rooted in that world himself. He finds himself in it as an individual. That is, his knowing, which is the conditioning bearer of the whole world as representation, still works entirely through a body. As I have shown, the affections of this body are the understanding’s starting point for perceiving that world. To the purely knowing subject as such, this body is a representation like any other, an object among objects. Its movements and actions are known to him only the way the changes in all other perceptual objects are known. They would be just as strange and incomprehensible to him if their meaning were not solved for him in some entirely different way. Otherwise he would see his own acting follow on the motives presented to him with the constancy of a law of nature, just as the changes of other objects follow on causes, stimuli and motives. But he would understand the influence of motives no better than he understands how any other effect that appears to him is connected with its cause. He would then call the inner nature of these expressions and actions of his body a force, a quality or a character, as he liked, but he would have no further insight into it. None of this is so, however. Instead, the subject of knowing, who appears as an individual, has been given the word that solves the riddle. And this word is will. This, and this alone, gives him the key to his own appearance. It reveals the meaning to him and shows him the inner workings of his being, his doing and his movements. The subject of knowing appears as an individual through its identity with the body. This body is given to it in two entirely different ways. First, it is given as representation, in the understanding’s perception, as an object among objects and subject to their laws. But at the same time it is given in a completely different way, as that which everyone knows directly and which the word will names. Every true act of his will is at once and inevitably also a movement of his body. He cannot really will the act without at the same time perceiving that it appears as a movement of the body. The act of will and the action of the body are not two different states, known objectively and joined by the bond of causality. They do not stand in the relation of cause and effect. They are one and the same thing, given in two entirely different ways: once quite directly, and once in perception for the understanding. The action of the body is nothing other than the act of the will objectified, that is, passed into perception. Later it will be shown that this holds for every movement of the body. It holds not only for movements that follow motives but also for the involuntary movements that follow mere stimuli. In fact, the whole body is nothing other than the will objectified, that is, become representation. All this will come out and become clear as we go on. So here, from a different point of view, I will call the body the objectivity of the will. In the previous book and in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason I called it the immediate object. I took a standpoint there (that of representation) that was deliberately one-sided. For the same reason one can say, in a certain sense, that the will is the knowledge a priori of the body, and the body is the knowledge a posteriori of the will.—Decisions of the will that concern the future are mere deliberations of reason about what one will want someday. They are not real acts of will. Only the carrying out stamps the decision as one. Until then it is only a changeable intention, and it exists only in reason, in abstracto. Only in reflection are willing and doing different. In reality they are one. Every true, genuine, direct act of the will is at once and directly also an appearing act of the body. Correspondingly, every impact on the body is at once and directly also an impact on the will. As such it is called pain when it is against the will, and well-being or sensual pleasure when it agrees with the will. Both come in very different degrees. But it is quite wrong to call pain and sensual pleasure representations. They are not that at all. They are direct affections of the will in its appearance, the body: a forced, momentary willing or not-willing of the impression that the body undergoes. Only a few impressions on the body are to be taken directly as mere representations, and so are excepted from what I have just said. These are the impressions that do not stir the will. Only through them is the body an immediate object of knowing, since as a perception in the understanding it is already a mediate object, like all the others. What I mean here are the affections of the purely objective senses: sight, hearing and touch. Even these count only when the organs are affected in the way that is specially proper to them, their specific and natural way. This way is so extremely weak a stimulation of the heightened and specifically modified sensibility of these parts that it does not affect the will. Undisturbed by any stirring of the will, it only supplies the understanding with the data from which perception arises. But any stronger or different affection of these sense organs is painful, that is, against the will. So they too belong to its objectivity.—Weak nerves show themselves in this: impressions that should have only the degree of strength needed to make them data for the understanding reach a higher degree, at which they move the will, that is, arouse pain or a feeling of well-being. Pain is the more frequent of the two, though it is partly dull and indistinct. This pain makes single tones and strong light feel painful. It also brings on, in general, a morbid, hypochondriac mood, without being clearly recognized as pain.—The identity of body and will also shows itself, among other ways, in this: every violent and excessive movement of the will, that is, every emotion, shakes the body and its inner workings directly and disturbs the course of its vital functions. This is worked out in detail in “On the Will in Nature,” p. 27 of the second edition.

Finally, the knowledge I have of my will is direct, yet it cannot be separated from my knowledge of my body. I do not know my will as a whole, as a unity, or completely in its essence. I know it only in its single acts, and so in time, which is the form in which my body appears, like every object. So the body is a condition of my knowledge of my will. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot represent this will without my body. In the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, the will, or rather the subject of willing, is set up as a special class of representations or objects. But even there we saw this object coincide with the subject, that is, stop being an object. We called this coinciding the miracle κατ’ εξοχην. In a way, this whole present work is the explanation of it.—Insofar as I really know my will as an object, I know it as body. But then I am back at the first class of representations set up in that essay, that is, at real objects. As we go on we will see more and more that this first class of representations finds its explanation, the solution of its riddle, only in the fourth class set up there. That fourth class no longer really wanted to stand opposite the subject as an object. Accordingly, we must learn to understand the inner nature of the law of causality, which holds in the first class, and of what happens according to it, from the law of motivation, which governs the fourth class.

The identity of will and body, which I have now set out provisionally, can only be demonstrated. That is how it has been done here, for the first time, and how it is to be done more and more as we go on. To demonstrate it is to raise it from immediate consciousness, from knowledge in concreto, to knowledge of reason, or to carry it over into knowledge in abstracto. By its nature, though, it can never be proved, that is, derived as mediate knowledge from some other, more immediate knowledge. This is precisely because it is itself the most immediate knowledge. If we do not grasp it and hold to it as such, we will wait in vain to get it back in some mediate way, as derived knowledge. It is a knowledge of an entirely special kind. For that very reason its truth cannot even properly be placed under any of the four headings into which I divided all truth in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 29 ff.: logical, empirical, metaphysical and metalogical. For unlike all of those, it is not the relation of an abstract representation to another representation, or to the necessary form of intuitive or abstract representing. It is the relation of a judgment to the relationship that an intuitive representation, the body, has to something that is not representation at all but is toto genere different from it: will. So I would like to single out this truth above all others and call it philosophical truth κατ’ εξοχην. One can put its expression in various ways. One can say: my body and my will are one. Or: what I call my body as an intuitive representation I call my will insofar as I am conscious of it in an entirely different way, comparable to no other. Or: my body is the objectivity of my will. Or: leaving aside that my body is my representation, it is only my will; and so on [1].

19 In the first book, with an inner reluctance, we declared our own body, like all other objects of this perceptual world, to be mere representation of the knowing subject. Now it has become clear what, in everyone’s consciousness, sets the representation of one’s own body apart from all the others, which are otherwise quite like it. It is this: the body also occurs in consciousness in an entirely different way, different toto genere, which the word will names. And it is this double knowledge we have of our own body that gives us information about the body itself: about its acting and moving on motives, and about its suffering from outside impact. In a word, it tells us what the body is not as representation but beyond that, and so in itself. We have no such direct information about the nature, acting and suffering of any other real objects.

The knowing subject is an individual precisely through this special relation to the one body, which, considered apart from that relation, is for it only a representation like all the rest. For that very reason, the relation by which the knowing subject is an individual holds only between it and a single one of all its representations. So it is conscious of this single one not merely as a representation but at the same time in an entirely different way, namely as a will. But suppose the subject sets aside that special relation, that double and wholly different knowledge of one and the same thing. Then that one thing, the body, is a representation like all the others. So, to get its bearings on this, the knowing individual must assume one of two things. Either it assumes that what distinguishes that one representation lies only in this: its knowledge stands in this double relation to that one representation alone, and only into this one perceptual object is insight open to it in two ways [2] On this see chapter 18 of the second volume. at once. But then this must be explained not by any difference of this object from all the others, but only by a difference between the relation its knowledge has to this one object and the relation it has to all the others. Or else it must assume that this one object is essentially different from all the others. It alone of all is at once will and representation, while the rest are mere representation, that is, mere phantoms. Then its body would be the only real individual in the world, that is, the only appearance of will and the only immediate object of the subject.—That the other objects, regarded as mere representations, are like his body can indeed be proved with certainty. Like his body, they fill space (which itself may possibly exist only as representation), and like it they act in space. The proof comes from the law of causality, which is secure a priori for representations and allows no effect without a cause. But an effect only lets us infer some cause or other, not a cause of the same kind. And so we are still within the realm of mere representation, to which alone the law of causality applies and beyond which it can never lead. Now, whether the objects known to the individual only as representations are nonetheless, like his own body, appearances of a will: as already said in the previous book, this is the real meaning of the question about the reality of the external world. To deny it is the meaning of theoretical egoism, which for that reason takes all appearances other than its own individual to be phantoms. Practical egoism does exactly the same thing in practice. It regards and treats only its own person as truly a person, and all the others as mere phantoms. Theoretical egoism can never be refuted by proofs. Still, in philosophy it has surely never been used other than as a skeptical sophism, that is, for show. As a serious conviction it could be found only in a madhouse. As such, it would need a cure rather than a proof. So we will not engage with it any further here. We will regard it only as the last stronghold of skepticism, which is always polemical.

Our knowledge is always tied to individuality, and its limit lies precisely there. So it necessarily follows that each person can be only one thing, while he can know everything else. This limit is what actually creates the need for philosophy. For that very reason we try to widen the limits of our knowledge through philosophy. So we will regard this skeptical argument of theoretical egoism, which confronts us here, as a small border fortress. It can never be taken, but its garrison can never get out of it either. So we may walk past it and leave it behind us without danger.

Accordingly, from here on we shall use the double cognition, now raised to clarity, which we have of the essence and action of our own body, given in two wholly different ways, as a key to the essence of every appearance in nature. All objects that are not our own body, and so are given to our consciousness not in a double way but only as representations, we shall judge by analogy with that body. We therefore assume that on one side they are, exactly like the body, representation, and in that respect of the same kind as it. On the other side, if one sets aside their existence as representation of the subject, then what still remains, in its inner essence, must be the same as what we call will in ourselves. For what other kind of existence or reality should we attribute to the rest of the bodily world? Where should we take the elements from, out of which to put such a thing together? Besides will and representation nothing at all is known to us or even thinkable. If we want to attribute to the bodily world, which directly exists only in our representation, the greatest reality known to us, then we give it the reality that each person’s own body has. For to each person their own body is the most real thing. But if we now analyze the reality of this body and its actions, we find in it, besides that it is our representation, nothing but will. With that its reality is exhausted. So we can find nowhere any other reality to attribute to the bodily world. If, then, the bodily world is to be something more than merely our representation, we must say that outside representation, so in itself and according to its innermost essence, it is what we find in ourselves immediately as will. I say according to its innermost essence. But we must first get to know this essence of the will more closely, so that we can tell apart from it what does not belong to it itself but already to its appearance, which has many degrees. Such, for example, is being accompanied by cognition, and the being determined by motives that depends on that. As we shall see further on, this belongs not to the essence of the will but only to its distinct appearance as animal and man. So when I say that the force that drives the stone to the earth is, in its essence, in itself and apart from all representation, will, nobody will read into this proposition the mad opinion that the stone moves according to a known motive, because in man the will appears in that way³.—But now we want to prove more fully and clearly what has been presented so far provisionally and in general, to ground it, and to develop it in its whole extent⁴.

20 As the essence in itself of one’s own body, as that which this body is besides being an object of intuition, a representation, the will, as said, first makes itself known in the voluntary movements of this body. These movements are nothing other than the visibility of the single acts of will, with which they occur immediately and wholly at the same time, [5] We shall therefore by no means agree with Bacon of Verulam when he holds (de augm. scient. L. 4 in fine) that all mechanical and physical movements of bodies came about only after a preceding perception in these bodies. Yet a presentiment of the truth gave existence even to this false proposition. The same is true of Kepler’s assertion, in his treatise de planeta Martis, that the planets must have cognition in order to hit their elliptical paths so correctly and to measure the speed of their motion so that the triangles of the area of their path always remain proportional to the time in which they run through its base.

6 See chapter 19 of the second volume. as one and the same with them, distinguished from them only by the form of knowability into which they have passed, that is, have become representation.

These acts of will, however, still have a ground outside themselves, in the motives. But the motives never determine more than what I will at this time, in this place, under these circumstances. They do not determine that I will at all, nor what I will at all, that is, the maxim that characterizes my willing as a whole. So my willing cannot be explained in its whole essence from the motives. They determine only its expression at the given moment and are only the occasion on which my will shows itself. The will itself, by contrast, lies outside the territory of the law of motivation. Only its appearance at each moment is necessarily determined by that law. Only on the presupposition of my empirical character is the motive a sufficient explanatory ground of my action. But if I abstract from my character and then ask why I will this and not that at all, no answer is possible. For only the appearance of the will is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, not the will itself, which in that respect can be called groundless. Here I presuppose partly Kant’s teaching on the empirical and intelligible character, and also my discussions of the matter in the “Fundamental Problems of Ethics,” pp. 48–58 and again p. 178 ff. of the first edition. Partly we shall have to speak of it at greater length in the fourth book. For now I only have to point out that the grounding of one appearance by another, here of the deed by the motive, in no way conflicts with the fact that its essence in itself is will, which itself has no ground. The principle of sufficient reason, in all its forms, is merely a form of cognition, so its validity extends only to the representation, the appearance, the visibility of the will, not to the will itself that becomes visible.

Now if every action of my body is the appearance of an act of will, in which, under given motives, my will itself in general and as a whole, that is, my character, expresses itself again, then the unavoidable condition and presupposition of that action must also be an appearance of the will. For its appearing cannot depend on something that does not come directly and solely through it, and that would therefore be only accidental for it. That would make its appearing itself only accidental. But that condition is the whole body itself. So this body itself must already be an appearance of the will. It must relate to my will as a whole, that is, to my intelligible character, whose appearance in time is my empirical character, as the single action of the body relates to the single act of will. So the whole body must be nothing other than my will become visible. It must be my will itself, insofar as this is an object of intuition, a representation of the first class.—As confirmation of this it has already been stated that every influence on my body at once and directly also affects my will, and in that respect is called pain or sensual pleasure, or, in a lower degree, agreeable or disagreeable sensation. It has also been stated that, conversely, every violent movement of the will, that is, emotion and passion, shakes the body and disturbs the course of its functions.—It is true that an account of the origin of my body, though a very imperfect one, and somewhat better of its development and preservation, can also be given etiologically. This is just physiology. But physiology explains its subject only in the way that motives explain acting. The grounding of the single action by the motive, and its necessary result from the motive, does not conflict with the fact that the action in general and in its essence is only the appearance of a will that is groundless in itself. In the same way, the physiological explanation of the functions of the body does not detract from the philosophical truth that the whole existence of this body and the whole series of its functions is only the objectification of that very will which appears in the outward actions of the same body according to the motives. Physiology even tries to trace these outward actions themselves, the immediately voluntary movements, back to causes in the organism. For example, it tries to explain the movement of the muscle from an inflow of fluids (“like the contraction of a rope that gets wet,” says Reil, in his Archiv für Physiologie, vol. 6, p. 153). But suppose one really came to a thorough explanation of this kind. It would still never cancel the immediately certain truth that every voluntary movement (functiones animales) is the appearance of an act of will. Just as little can the physiological explanation of vegetative life (functiones naturales, vitales), however far it may go, cancel the truth that this whole animal life, developing in this way, is itself appearance of the will. In general, as explained above, no etiological explanation can ever state more than the necessarily determined place in time and space of a single appearance, and its necessary entry there according to a fixed rule. On this path the inner essence of every appearance always remains unfathomable. Every etiological explanation presupposes it and only designates it by the names force, or law of nature, or, when actions are in question, character, will.—So although every single action, on the presupposition of the determinate character, follows necessarily when a motive is presented, and although growth, the process of nutrition and all the changes in the animal body go on according to necessarily acting causes (stimuli), still the whole series of actions, and therefore every single one, is nothing other than the appearance of the will, its becoming visible, its objectivity. The same holds for their condition, the whole body itself that carries them out, and so also for the process through which and in which it exists. On this rests the perfect fit of the human and animal body to the human and animal will in general. It is like the fit that a tool made on purpose has to the will of its maker, but far surpasses it, and for this reason appears as purposiveness, that is, as the body’s being explicable teleologically. The parts of the body must therefore correspond perfectly to the principal desires through which the will manifests itself. They must be the visible expression of those desires. Teeth, throat and intestinal canal are objectified hunger. The genitals are objectified sexual drive. The grasping hands and the quick feet correspond to the already more indirect striving of the will which they represent. As the general human form corresponds to the general human will, so the individual bodily constitution corresponds to the individually modified will, the character of the single person. That constitution is therefore characteristic and expressive throughout and in all its parts. It is very remarkable that Parmenides already said this, in the following verses cited by Aristotle (Metaph. III, 5):

21 Whoever has come, through all these considerations, to the knowledge in abstracto too, and so clearly and surely, which everyone possesses in concreto immediately, that is, as feeling, has come to this: the essence in itself of one’s own appearance is one’s will. This appearance presents itself as representation both through one’s actions and through their lasting substrate, one’s body. The will makes up the most immediate thing in consciousness, yet as such it has not fully entered into the form of representation, in which object and subject stand opposed. It makes itself known in an immediate way, in which subject and object are not quite clearly distinguished, and yet not as a whole either. It becomes recognizable to the individual only in its single acts.—Whoever, I say, has gained this conviction with me, to them it will become, quite of itself, the key to the cognition of the innermost essence of the whole of nature. For they will now carry it over also to all those appearances [8] See chapter 20 of the second volume; also, in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the headings “Physiology” and “Comparative Anatomy,” where what is only hinted at here has received its thorough development. that are given to them not, like their own, in immediate cognition beside the mediated one, but only in the latter, and so one-sidedly, as representation alone. Not only in those appearances that are quite like their own, in men and animals, will they recognize that same will as the innermost essence. Continued reflection will lead them to see also the force that drives and vegetates in the plant, even the force by which the crystal shoots, the force that turns the magnet to the north pole, the force whose shock leaps at them from the contact of heterogeneous metals, the force that appears in the elective affinities of substances as fleeing and seeking, separating and uniting, and finally even gravity, which strives so powerfully in all matter and pulls the stone to the earth and the earth to the sun: all these are different only in appearance, and in their inner essence are the same, namely that which is known to them so immediately and intimately, and better than anything else, and which, where it comes out most clearly, is called will. This application of reflection alone no longer lets us stop at appearance but leads us across to the thing in itself. Appearance means representation, and nothing more. All representation, of whatever kind, every object, is appearance. The thing in itself, however, is the will alone. As such it is not representation at all but differs from it toto genere. It is that of which all representation, all objects, are the appearance, the visibility, the objectivity. It is the innermost part, the kernel of every single thing and likewise of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature. It also appears in the deliberate action of man. The great difference between these two concerns only the degree of the appearing, not the essence of what appears.

22 This thing in itself (let us keep Kant’s expression as a standing formula) is never an object as such, precisely because every object is already again its mere appearance, not it itself. If it was nevertheless to be thought objectively, it had to borrow a name and a concept from an object, from something somehow given objectively, and therefore from one of its appearances. But to serve as a point of mutual understanding, this appearance could be no other than the most perfect of all its appearances, that is, the most distinct, the most developed, the one directly lit up by cognition. And that is precisely the will of man. One must note, however, that here we are only using a denominatio a potiori, through which, for that very reason, the concept of will gets a wider extent than it had before. Cognition of the identical in different appearances and of the different in similar ones is, as Plato so often remarks, the very condition of philosophy. Until now, though, the identity of the essence of every force in nature that strives and acts, with the will, had not been recognized. So the many kinds of appearance, which are only different species of the same genus, were not regarded as that, but were considered heterogeneous. For this reason there could also be no word to designate the concept of this genus. I therefore name the genus after its best species, the nearer, immediate cognition of which leads to the mediated cognition of all the others. But anyone who was not able to carry out the extension of the concept demanded here would remain caught in permanent misunderstanding. Such a person would insist on understanding by the word will only the one species it has so far alone designated: the will guided by cognition, expressing itself exclusively according to motives, indeed perhaps even only according to abstract motives, that is, under the guidance of reason. This, as I said, is only the most distinct appearance of the will. We must now separate out in thought, purely, the innermost essence of this appearance, which is known to us immediately. Then we must transfer it to all the weaker, less distinct appearances of the same essence. In this way we carry out the demanded extension of the concept of will.—In the opposite way, however, I would be misunderstood by anyone who perhaps thought it makes no difference in the end whether one designates that essence in itself of all appearance by the word will or by some other. This would be so if that thing in itself were something whose existence we merely inferred, and so knew only indirectly and only in abstracto. Then one could indeed call it whatever one liked. The name would stand there as a mere sign of an unknown quantity. But the word will, which is supposed to unlock to us, like a magic word, the innermost essence of every thing in nature, designates by no means an unknown quantity, a something reached by inferences. It designates something wholly immediately known, and so well known that we know and understand what will is much better than anything else, whatever it may be.—Until now people subsumed the concept of will under the concept of force. I do exactly the reverse and want every force in nature to be thought as will. Do not suppose that this is a quarrel about words, or a matter of indifference. It is rather of the highest significance and importance. For the concept of force, like all other concepts, rests in the end on the intuitive cognition of the objective world, that is, on appearance, on representation, and is drawn from it. It is abstracted from the territory where cause and effect rule, so from intuitive representation. It means precisely the very fact that a cause is a cause, at the point where this can in no way be explained further etiologically, but is just the necessary presupposition of all etiological explanation. The concept of will, by contrast, is the only one among all possible concepts that does not have its origin in appearance, in mere intuitive representation. It comes from within. It comes out of the most immediate consciousness of each person, in which each person knows their own individual, in its essence, immediately, without any form, even without that of subject and object, and at the same time is it, since here the knower and the known coincide. So if we trace the concept of force back to that of will, we have in fact traced something less known back to something infinitely better known, indeed to the one thing really, immediately and wholly known to us, and we have extended our knowledge very greatly. If, on the other hand, we subsume the concept of will under that of force, as has been done so far, we give up the one immediate cognition that we have of the inner essence of the world. We let it sink into a concept abstracted from appearance, with which we can therefore never get beyond appearance.

23 As thing in itself, the will is wholly different from its appearance and entirely free of all its forms. It enters into those forms only by appearing, so they concern only its objectivity and are foreign to it itself. Even the most general form of all representation, that of the object for a subject, does not touch it, still less the forms subordinate to this one, which all have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which, as is well known, time and space also belong, and therefore also the multiplicity that exists and becomes possible only through them. In this last respect I shall, using an expression borrowed from the old, real Scholasticism, call time and space the principium individuationis, which I ask the reader to note once and for all. For only time and space are the means by which what is the same and one in essence and concept still appears as different, as multiplicity side by side and one after another. They are therefore the principium individuationis, the object of so many subtleties and disputes of the Scholastics, which can be found together in Suarez (Disp. 5, sect. 3).—According to what has been said, the will as thing in itself lies outside the territory of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is therefore absolutely groundless, although each of its appearances is wholly subject to the principle of sufficient reason. It is further free of all multiplicity, although its appearances in time and space are countless. It itself is one. But it is not one as an object is one, whose unity is known only by contrast with possible multiplicity. Nor is it one as a concept is one, which arose only by abstraction from multiplicity. It is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium individuationis, that is, outside the possibility of multiplicity. Only when all this has become completely clear to us through the following study of the appearances and different manifestations of the will, shall we completely understand the sense of Kant’s teaching that time, space and causality do not belong to the thing in itself but are only forms of knowing.

The groundlessness of the will was indeed recognized, where it manifests itself most distinctly, as the will of man, and this will was called free, independent. But people at once overlooked, because of the groundlessness of the will itself, the necessity to which its appearance is everywhere subject, and declared the deeds free, which they are not, since every single action follows with strict necessity from the effect of the motive on the character. All necessity is, as already said, the relation of consequence to ground and absolutely nothing more. The principle of sufficient reason is the general form of all appearance, and the human being in their doing must be subject to it, like every other appearance. But because in self-consciousness the will is known immediately and in itself, the consciousness of freedom lies in this consciousness too. What is overlooked is that the individual, the person, is not will as thing in itself, but already an appearance of the will, and as such already determined and entered into the form of appearance, the principle of sufficient reason. From this comes the strange fact that everyone holds themselves a priori to be wholly free, even in their single actions, and thinks they could begin a different way of life at any moment, which would mean becoming a different person. But a posteriori, through experience, they find to their astonishment that they are not free but subject to necessity: that in spite of all resolutions and reflections they do not change their doing, and that from the beginning of life to its end they must carry out the same character that they themselves disapprove of, and as it were play to the end the role they have taken on. I cannot pursue this consideration further here, since as an ethical matter it belongs at another place in this work. For now I only wish to point out that the appearance of the will, groundless in itself, is still as such subject to the law of necessity, that is, the principle of sufficient reason. This is so that the necessity with which the appearances of nature follow does not keep us from recognizing in them the manifestations of the will.

Until now people considered as appearances of the will only those changes that have no other ground than a motive, that is, a representation. So in nature, will was attributed only to man, and at most to animals, since knowing, representing, is indeed, as I have already mentioned elsewhere, the genuine and exclusive mark of animality. But that the will also acts where no cognition guides it, we see first of all in the instinct and the constructive drives of animals⁹. That they have representations and cognition does not come into consideration here at all, since the purpose toward which they work, exactly as if it were a known motive, remains entirely unknown to them. So their acting here happens without motive, is not guided by representation, and shows us first and most distinctly how the will is active even without any cognition. The one-year-old bird has no representation of the eggs for which it builds a nest. The young spider has none of the prey for which it spins a web. Nor has the ant-lion any of the ant for which it digs a pit for the first time. The larva of the stag beetle bites the hole in the wood, where it intends to undergo its transformation, twice as large if it is going to become a male beetle as if it is going to become a female. In the first case it does so to have room for horns, of which it has as yet no representation. In such doing of these animals the will is evidently active, as in the rest of their doing. But it is in blind activity, which is accompanied by cognition indeed, but not guided by it. Once we have gained the insight that representation as motive is no necessary and essential condition of the activity of the will, we shall also find it easier to recognize the working of the will in cases where it is less obvious. For example, we shall then no more ascribe the snail’s house to a will foreign to the snail itself but guided by cognition, than we suppose the house we build ourselves to come into existence through a will other than our own. Instead we shall recognize both houses as works of the will that objectifies itself in both appearances, which works in us according to motives, but in the snail still blindly, as a formative drive directed outward. In us too the same will works in many ways blindly: in all the functions of our body that no cognition guides, in all its vital and vegetative processes, [10] Chapter 27 of the second volume deals with these specially.

digestion, circulation of the blood, secretion, growth, reproduction. Not only the actions of the body, but the body itself wholly and entirely is, as shown above, appearance of the will, objectified will, concrete will. Everything that goes on in it must therefore go on through will, although here this will is not guided by cognition and is not determined according to motives, but, working blindly, according to causes, which in this case are called stimuli.

By cause, in the narrowest sense of the word, I mean that state of matter which, in necessarily bringing about another state, itself undergoes a change as great as the one it causes. This is expressed in the rule “action and reaction are equal.” Further, with the cause proper, the effect grows exactly in the same proportion as the cause, and so the reaction does too. So once the kind of effect is known, the degree of the effect can be measured and calculated from the degree of the cause’s intensity, and the other way around. Causes in this proper sense work in all the phenomena of mechanism, chemism and so on, in short, in all changes of inorganic bodies. Stimulus, by contrast, I call that cause which itself undergoes no reaction proportionate to its effect, and whose intensity in no way runs parallel in degree with the intensity of the effect, so that the effect cannot be measured by it. A small increase of the stimulus can bring about a very large increase in the effect, or can also, the other way around, cancel the previous effect entirely, and so on. Every effect on organic bodies as such is of this kind. All the properly organic and vegetative changes in the animal body therefore take place on stimuli, not on mere causes. But the stimulus, like every cause in general, and likewise the motive, never determines more than the point of entry in time and space for the manifestation of each force. It does not determine the inner essence of the manifesting force itself, which, according to our earlier derivation, we recognize as will. We therefore ascribe to the will both the unconscious and the conscious changes of the body. The stimulus holds the middle position and makes the transition between the motive, which is causality that has passed through cognition, and the cause in the narrowest sense. In single cases it lies now nearer the motive, now nearer the cause, but is still always to be distinguished from both. For example, the rise of sap in plants happens on stimulus. It cannot be explained from mere causes, according to the laws of hydraulics or of capillary tubes. Yet it is probably helped by these, and altogether is already very near to purely causal change. By contrast, the movements of Hedysarum gyrans and Mimosa pudica, although still following mere stimuli, are already very similar to those that follow motives, and seem almost to want to make the transition. The narrowing of the pupil under increased light happens on stimulus but already passes over into movement on motive. It happens because too strong a light would painfully affect the retina, and we contract the pupil to avoid this.—The occasion of an erection is a motive, since it is a representation. Yet it works with the necessity of a stimulus. That is, it cannot be resisted, but must be removed to make it ineffective. It is the same with disgusting objects, which arouse the inclination to vomit. We have just considered the instinct of animals as a real middle link of quite a different kind between movement on stimulus and acting according to a known motive. One might be tempted to look on breathing as another middle link of this kind. For people have disputed whether it belongs to the voluntary or the involuntary movements, that is, really whether it happens on motive or on stimulus. According to that it might perhaps be declared an intermediate thing between the two. Marshall Hall (“On the diseases of the nervous system,” § 293 sq.) declares it a mixed function, since it stands under the influence partly of the cerebral (voluntary) and partly of the spinal (involuntary) nerves. Still, in the end we must count it among the manifestations of will that follow motives. For other motives, that is, mere representations, can determine the will to check or hasten it. Like every other voluntary action, it has the appearance that one could omit it altogether and freely suffocate. One really could do so, as soon as some other motive determined the will so strongly that it outweighed the urgent need for air. According to some, Diogenes really ended his life in this way (Diog. Laert. VI, 76). Negroes too are said to have done this (F. B. Osiander, “On Suicide” 1813, pp. 170–180). We would have in this a strong example of the influence of abstract motives, that is, of the superior power of properly rational willing over merely animal willing. The fact that prussic acid kills primarily by paralyzing the brain and so indirectly checking breathing shows that breathing is at least partly conditioned by cerebral activity. But if breathing is kept up artificially until that stupefaction of the brain has passed, no death occurs at all. At the same time breathing here gives us, in passing, the most striking example that motives work with just as great a necessity as stimuli and mere causes in the narrowest sense, and can be put out of action only by opposite motives, as pressure by counterpressure. For in breathing the appearance of being able to omit it is far weaker than in other movements that follow motives. This is because the motive there is very urgent and very near, its satisfaction is very easy because the muscles that carry it out never tire, nothing usually stands against it, and the whole is supported by the oldest habit of the individual. And yet really all motives work with the same necessity. Knowing that necessity is common to movements on motives and movements on stimuli will make it easier for us to see that what goes on in the organic body on stimuli and wholly according to law is also, in its inner essence, will, which is never in itself, but in all its appearances, subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, to necessity¹¹. We shall therefore not stop at recognizing the animals as appearances of will, in their acting and equally in their whole existence, bodily constitution [12] This knowledge is fully established by my prize essay on the freedom of the will, where (pp. 30–44 of the “Fundamental Problems of Ethics”) the relation between cause, stimulus and motive has also received its detailed discussion. and organization. We shall also transfer this immediate cognition of the essence in itself of things, which alone is given to us, to plants, all of whose movements follow stimuli, since the absence of cognition and of the movement on motive conditioned by it alone makes up the essential difference between animal and plant. So what appears to representation as plant, as mere vegetation, as blindly driving force, we shall address as will according to its essence in itself, and recognize as the very thing that makes up the basis of our own appearance, as it expresses itself in our doing and already in the whole existence of our own body.

There remains only the last step to take: to extend our way of looking to all those forces that act in nature according to general, unchangeable laws, in accordance with which move all the bodies that, wholly without organs, have no receptivity for stimulus and no cognition for motive. So we must apply the key to understanding the essence in itself of things, which only immediate cognition of our own essence could give us, to these appearances of the inorganic world too, which stand at the widest distance from us of all.—Now look at them with a searching eye. We see the mighty, unstoppable urge with which the waters hurry to the deep. We see the persistence with which the magnet turns again and again to the north pole, the longing with which the iron flies to it, the violence with which the poles of electricity strive to reunite, which, just like that of human wishes, is increased by obstacles. We see the crystal shoot quickly and suddenly, with such regularity of formation, which is clearly only a quite decided and exactly determined striving in different directions, seized and held fast by solidification. We notice the choice with which bodies, set free by the state of fluidity and released from the bonds of rigidity, seek and flee each other, unite and separate. And finally we feel quite immediately how a weight, whose striving toward the mass of the earth our body checks, presses and pushes on this body unceasingly, pursuing its one striving. Then it will cost us no great effort of imagination to recognize our own essence even at so great a distance. It is the very same thing that in us pursues its aims by the light of cognition, but here, in the weakest of its appearances, strives only blindly, dully, one-sidedly and unchangeably. Yet, because it is everywhere one and the same—just as the first dawn shares with the rays of full noon the name of sunlight—it must here as there bear the name will, which designates that which is the being in itself of every thing in the world and the sole kernel of every appearance.

The distance, however, indeed the appearance of a total difference, between the appearances of inorganic nature and the will that we perceive as the inside of our own essence arises chiefly from the contrast between the wholly determinate lawfulness in the one kind of appearance and the seemingly rule-less arbitrariness in the other. For in man individuality stands out strongly. Everyone has their own character. So the same motive does not have the same force on all, and a thousand side circumstances, which have room in the wide sphere of cognition of the individual but remain unknown to others, modify its effect. For that reason the action cannot be predetermined from the motive alone, because the other factor is missing, the exact knowledge of the individual character and of the cognition that goes with it. The appearances of the forces of nature show here the other extreme. They work according to general laws, without deviation, without individuality, according to openly visible circumstances, subject to the most exact predetermination, and the same force of nature manifests itself in the millions of its appearances in exactly the same way. To clear up this point, to prove the identity of the one and indivisible will in all its so different appearances, in the weakest as in the strongest, we must first consider the relation that the will as thing in itself has to its appearance, that is, that the world as will has to the world as representation. This will open to us the best way to a deeper investigation of the whole subject treated in this second book [13].

24 We have learned from the great Kant that time, space and causality, in all their lawfulness and in the possibility of all their forms, are present in our consciousness quite independently of the objects that appear in them and make up their content. Or in other words: they can be found just as well if one starts from the subject as if one starts from the object. So with equal right one can call them modes of intuition of the subject, or also properties of the object insofar as it is object (in Kant: appearance), that is, representation. One can also look on those forms as the indivisible boundary between object and subject. So all objects must indeed appear in them, but the subject too, independently of the appearing object, possesses them completely and surveys them.—Now if the objects that appear in these forms are not to be empty phantoms but to have a meaning, they would have to point to something. They would have to be the expression of something that is not again, like themselves, object, representation, something existing only relatively, namely for a subject. It would have to exist without such dependence on something standing opposite it as an essential condition, and without its forms, that is, it would have to be precisely no representation but a thing in itself. So one could at least ask: are those representations, those objects, anything else besides, and apart from being representations, objects of the subject? And what would they then be in that sense? What is that other side of theirs, different toto genere from representation? What is the thing in itself?—The will: that has been our answer, which, however, I set aside for now.

14 See chapter 23 of the second volume; likewise, in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the chapter “Plant Physiology” and the chapter “Physical Astronomy,” which is extremely important for the core of my metaphysics. Whatever the thing in itself may be, Kant concluded rightly that time, space and causality (which we have later recognized as forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and this principle as the general expression of the forms of appearance) are not determinations of it. They could belong to it only after and insofar as it has become representation, that is, they belonged only to its appearance, not to it itself. For since the subject knows and constructs them completely out of itself, independently of all objects, they must attach to being a representation as such, not to that which becomes representation. They must be the form of representation as such, not properties of that which has taken on this form. They must already be given with the mere opposition of subject and object (not in the concept, but in fact), and therefore be only the closer determination of the form of knowledge in general, whose most general determination is that opposition itself. Now consider what in the appearance, in the object, is in turn conditioned by time, space and causality, since it can be represented only by means of them: namely multiplicity, through the side-by-side and the one-after-another; change and duration, through the law of causality; matter, which can be represented only on the presupposition of causality; and finally everything that again can be represented only by means of this. All this together is essentially not proper to what appears, to what has entered into the form of representation, but attaches only to this form itself. Conversely, that in the appearance which is not conditioned by time, space and causality, nor can be traced back to them, nor explained according to them, will be precisely that in which what appears, the thing in itself, makes itself known immediately. According to this, the most perfect knowability, that is, the greatest clarity, distinctness and exhaustive fathomability, will necessarily belong to what is proper to knowledge as such, that is, the form of knowledge. It will not belong to what, in itself not representation and not object, became knowable, that is, representation, object, only by entering into these forms. So only that which depends solely on being known, on being a representation in general and as such (not on what is known and has become representation), which therefore belongs without distinction to everything that is known, and which for that reason is found just as well if one starts from the subject as if one starts from the object—this alone will be able to provide, without reservation, a sufficient, completely exhaustive knowledge, clear to the last ground. But this consists in nothing other than the forms of all appearance that we are conscious of a priori, which can be expressed jointly as the principle of sufficient reason. Its forms that relate to intuitive cognition (with which we are exclusively concerned here) are time, space and causality. On these alone is founded the whole of pure mathematics and of pure natural science a priori. Only in these sciences, therefore, does cognition find no darkness, and not run up against the unfathomable (the groundless, that is, will), against what cannot be derived further. In this respect Kant too, as said, wanted to call those cognitions, along with logic, preeminently, indeed exclusively, sciences. On the other hand, however, these cognitions show us nothing further than mere relations, relations of one representation to another, form, without any content. Every content they get, every appearance that fills those forms, already contains something no longer completely knowable in its whole essence, no longer wholly explainable through something else, therefore something groundless. At once cognition loses evidence by this and loses its perfect transparency. But this which withdraws from fathoming is precisely the thing in itself. It is that which is essentially not representation, not object of cognition, but has become knowable only by entering into that form. The form is originally foreign to it, and it can never become wholly one with it. It can never be traced back to the mere form, and, since this is the principle of sufficient reason, it can therefore not be completely fathomed. So even if all mathematics gives us exhaustive cognition of what in appearances is magnitude, position, number, in short, spatial and temporal relation, and if all etiology gives us completely the lawful conditions under which the appearances, with all their determinations, enter in time and space, yet with all this it teaches no more than why each determinate appearance must show itself just now here and just here now. So with their help we still never penetrate into the inner essence of things. There always remains something on which no explanation may venture, which it always presupposes: namely the forces of nature, the determinate way things act, the quality, the character of every appearance, the groundless, which does not depend on the form of appearance, the principle of sufficient reason, to which that form is foreign in itself, but which has entered into it and now comes forth according to its law. This law, however, determines only the coming forth, not what comes forth, only the How, not the What of the appearance, only the form, not the content.—Mechanics, physics and chemistry teach the rules and laws according to which the forces of impenetrability, gravity, rigidity, fluidity, cohesion, elasticity, heat, light, elective affinities, magnetism, electricity and so on act, that is, the law, the rule, which these forces observe in regard to their entry into time and space on each occasion. The forces themselves, however, remain, however one may carry on, qualitates occultae. For it is precisely the thing in itself which, in appearing, presents those phenomena. It is wholly different from them themselves. In its appearance it is indeed wholly subject to the principle of sufficient reason as the form of representation, but it can itself never be traced back to this form. It therefore cannot be explained etiologically to the last, nor ever fully fathomed. It is completely comprehensible insofar as it has taken on that form, that is, insofar as it is appearance, but in its inner essence it is not in the least explained by that comprehensibility. So the more necessity a cognition carries with it, the more it contains of what cannot be thought and represented otherwise (as, for example, spatial relations), and so the clearer and more sufficient it is, the less purely objective content it has, or the less real reality is given in it. And conversely, the more in it must be grasped as purely accidental, the more presses itself on us as merely empirically given, the more properly objective and truly real there is in such cognition, but also at the same time the more unexplainable, that is, not further derivable from something else.

Of course, in all times an etiology that has misjudged its aim has striven to trace all organic life back to chemism, or electricity; all chemism, that is, quality, back again to mechanism (action through the shape of the atoms); and this again partly to the object of phoronomy, that is, time and space united to make movement possible, partly to that of mere geometry, that is, position in space (roughly as one rightly constructs purely geometrically the decrease of an effect according to the square of the distance and the theory of the lever). Geometry can finally be resolved into arithmetic, which, because of the unity of its dimension, is the most graspable, most surveyable form of the principle of sufficient reason, fathomable to the last. Examples of the method generally indicated here are: Democritus’s atoms, Descartes’s vortices, the mechanical physics of Lesage, who, toward the end of the last century, tried to explain both chemical affinities and gravitation mechanically, by impact and pressure, as can be seen more closely in the “Lucrèce Neutonien.” Reil’s form and mixture as the cause of animal life also tends that way. Finally, wholly of this kind is the crude materialism warmed over again just now, in the middle of the nineteenth century, which, from ignorance, thinks itself original. First, with a stupid denial of the vital force, it wants to explain the phenomena of life from physical and chemical forces, then to have these arise in turn from the mechanical action of matter, the position, shape and movement of dreamed-up atoms, and so to trace all forces of nature back to impact and counter-impact, which are its “thing in itself.” According to this, even light is then supposed to be the mechanical vibration, or even undulation, of an imaginary ether, postulated for this purpose, which when it arrives drums on the retina, where then, for example, 483 trillion drumbeats a second give red and 727 trillion violet, and so on. The color-blind would then presumably be those who cannot count the drumbeats. Is that not right? Such crass, mechanical, Democritean, clumsy and truly lumpish theories are quite worthy of the people who, fifty years after the appearance of Goethe’s theory of colors, still believe in Newton’s homogeneous lights and are not ashamed to say so. They will find out that what is overlooked in the child (Democritus) is not forgiven in the man. They might even come to a disgraceful end one day. But then everyone sneaks away and acts as if they had not been there. We shall soon speak again of this false tracing back of original forces of nature to one another. Here only this much. Suppose this worked. Then of course everything would be explained and fathomed, indeed in the end reduced to a calculation exercise, which would then be the holy of holies in the temple of wisdom, to which the principle of sufficient reason would in the end have happily led. But all content of appearance would have vanished and mere form would be left over. What appears would be traced back to how it appears, and this how would be also knowable a priori, so wholly dependent on the subject, so only for it, so in the end mere phantom, representation and form of representation through and through. No thing in itself could be asked about.—If this worked, then really the whole world would be derived from the subject, and what Fichte wanted to seem to achieve by his humbug would in fact be accomplished.—But it does not work. In that way people have brought about fantasies, sophistications, castles in the air, no science. It has succeeded, and every time it succeeded it gave a real advance, to trace the many and varied appearances in nature back to a few original forces. People have derived several forces and qualities, at first held to be different, one from another (for example magnetism from electricity) and so reduced their number. Etiology will be at its goal when it has recognized and set up all the original forces of nature as such, and has fixed their ways of acting, that is, the rule according to which, on the guiding thread of causality, their appearances enter in time and space and determine their place among one another. But original forces will always remain; always there will remain, as an insoluble residue, a content of appearance that cannot be traced back to its form, and so cannot be explained from something else according to the principle of sufficient reason.—For in every thing in nature there is something of which no ground can ever be given, no explanation is possible, no further cause is to be sought. It is the specific way of its acting, that is, the way of its existence, its essence. Of every single effect of the thing a cause can indeed be shown, from which it follows that it had to act just now, just here. But that it acts at all, and just so, never. If it has no other properties, if it is a speck of dust in the sunbeam, it still shows that unfathomable something at least as gravity and impenetrability. This something, I say, is for it what the will is for the human being, and, like the will, it is in its inner essence not subject to explanation. Indeed it is in itself identical with the will. For each manifestation of the will, for each single act of it at this time, in this place, a motive can well be shown on which it had to follow necessarily, on the presupposition of the character of the person. But that the person has this character, that they will at all, that of several motives just this one and no other, indeed that any motive at all moves their will: of this no ground can ever be given. What the person’s unfathomable character is, which is presupposed in every explanation of their deeds from motives, that very thing is for every inorganic body its essential quality, the way it acts. Its manifestations are called forth by influence from outside, while it itself is determined by nothing outside it, and so is not explainable either. Its single appearances, through which alone it becomes visible, are subject to the principle of sufficient reason. It itself is groundless. The Scholastics had already recognized this in essence correctly and designated it as forma substantialis. (On which see Suarez, Disput. metaph., disp. XV, sect. 1.)

It is an error as great as it is common that the most frequent, most general and simplest appearances are the ones we understand best. In fact they are only those whose sight, and our ignorance about them, we have grown most used to. It is just as inexplicable to us that a stone falls to the earth as that an animal moves. As mentioned above, people supposed that, starting from the most general forces of nature (for example gravitation, cohesion, impenetrability), they could explain from these the forces that act more rarely and only under combined circumstances (for example chemical quality, electricity, magnetism), and finally understand from these in turn the organism and the life of animals, even the knowing and willing of man. People quietly accepted starting from nothing but qualitates occultae, whose clarification was wholly given up, since they intended to build on them, not to undermine them. Something of this kind, as said, cannot succeed. But apart from that, such a building would always stand in the air. What use are explanations that in the end lead back to something just as unknown as the first problem was? Does one in the end understand more about the inner essence of those general forces of nature than about the inner essence of an animal? Is not the one as unexplored as the other? It is unfathomable because it is groundless, because it is the content, the What of the appearance, which can never be traced back to its form, to the How, to the principle of sufficient reason. We, however, who here aim not at etiology but at philosophy, that is, not at relative but at unconditional knowledge of the essence of the world, take the opposite way. We start from what is known to us immediately, what is known to us most completely and is quite familiar, what lies nearest to us, in order to understand what is known to us only at a distance, one-sidedly and indirectly. And from the mightiest, most important, most distinct appearance we want to learn to understand the more imperfect, weaker one. Of all things, except my own body, I know only one side, that of representation. Their inner essence stays closed to me and a deep mystery, even if I know all the causes on which their changes follow. Only from comparison with what goes on in me when a motive moves me and my body performs an action—the inner essence of my own changes, determined by external grounds—can I get insight into the way those lifeless bodies change on causes, and so understand what their inner essence is, of whose appearing the knowledge of the cause gives me the mere rule of entry in time and space and nothing more. I can do this because my body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of representation, but also the second, which is called will. So instead of believing that I would understand my own organization, then my knowing and willing and my movement on motives, better if I could only trace them back to movement from causes, through electricity, through chemism, through mechanism, I must, insofar as I seek philosophy, not etiology, do the reverse. I must first learn to understand, according to their inner essence, even the simplest and commonest movements of the inorganic body, which I see follow on causes, from my own movement on motives. And I must recognize the unfathomable forces that manifest themselves in all bodies of nature as identical in kind with what is will in me, and as different from it only in degree. This means: the fourth class of representations, set up in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, must become for me the key to the cognition of the inner essence of the first class, and from the law of motivation I must learn to understand the law of causality in its inner meaning.

Spinoza says (epist. 62) that a stone flying through the air from a push, if it had consciousness, would believe it flew from its own will. I add only that the stone would be right. The push is for it what the motive is for me. And what in it appears as cohesion, gravity, persistence in the assumed state is, in its inner essence, the same as what I recognize in myself as will, and what it too would recognize as will if cognition were added in its case. Spinoza, in that passage, had directed his attention to the necessity with which the stone flies, and wants, rightly, to transfer it to the necessity of the single act of will of a person. I, by contrast, consider the inner essence which first gives meaning and validity to all real necessity (that is, effect from cause) as its presupposition. In man it is called character, in the stone quality. In both it is the same, called will where it is known immediately, and it has in the stone the weakest, in man the strongest degree of visibility, objectivity.—Even St. Augustine recognized, with a correct feeling, this element in the striving of all things that is identical with our willing, and I cannot refrain from setting down his naive expression of the matter: Si pecora essemus, carnalem vitam et quod secundum sensum ejusdem est amaremus, idque esset sufficiens bonum nostrum, et secundum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud quaereremus. Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus: verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, uberiusque fructuosae. Si essemus lapides, aut fluctus, aut ventus, aut flamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atque vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus. Nam velut amores corporum momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur: ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amore fertur quocunque fertur (de civ. Dei, XI, 28).

It also deserves notice that Euler already saw that the essence of gravitation must in the end be traced back to an “inclination and desire” (that is, will) peculiar to bodies (in the 68th letter to the Princess). In fact this very thing makes him averse to the concept of gravitation as it stands in Newton, and he is inclined to try a modification of it in accordance with the earlier Cartesian theory, that is, to derive gravitation from the impact of an ether on the bodies, which would be “more reasonable and more fitting for people who love clear and comprehensible principles.” He wants to see attraction banished from physics as a qualitas occulta. This is merely in keeping with the dead view of nature that, as correlate of the immaterial soul, ruled in Euler’s time. But it is worth noticing with respect to the fundamental truth I have set up. Even then this fine mind, seeing this truth shimmering through from afar, hurried to turn back in good time, and now, in his fear of seeing all the basic views of that time endangered, sought protection even in the old, already discarded absurdity.

25 We know that multiplicity in general is necessarily conditioned by time and space and can be thought only in them, which in this respect we call the principium individuationis. But time and space we have recognized as forms of the principle of sufficient reason, in which principle all our knowledge a priori is expressed. As explained above, as such they belong only to the knowability of things, not to things themselves. That is, they are only our form of cognition, not a property of the thing in itself. The thing in itself as such is free of every form of cognition, even the most general, that of being an object for the subject, that is, it is something wholly different from representation. Now if this thing in itself is, as I believe I have sufficiently proved and made evident, the will, then, taken as such and separate from its appearance, it lies outside time and space, and therefore knows no multiplicity. It is accordingly one. Yet, as already said, it is not one as an individual is one, nor as a concept is one, but as something to which the condition of the possibility of multiplicity, the principium individuationis, is foreign. The multiplicity of things in space and time, which are all its objectivity, therefore does not touch it, and it remains, in spite of them, indivisible. It is not as if a smaller part of it were in the stone, a larger in man. The relation of part and whole belongs exclusively to space and has no meaning any more as soon as one has left this form of intuition. Even the more and less touches only the appearance, that is, the visibility, the objectification. Of this there is a higher degree in the plant than in the stone, in the animal a higher one than in the plant. Indeed its coming forth into visibility, its objectification, has as infinite gradations as there are between the faintest twilight and the brightest sunlight, between the strongest tone and the faintest echo. We shall come back below to the consideration of these degrees of visibility, which belong to its objectification, the likeness of its essence. Still less than the gradations of its objectification touch it itself directly, the multiplicity of appearances on these different stages touches it, that is, the number of individuals of each form, or of the single manifestations of each force. For this multiplicity is immediately conditioned by time and space, which it itself never enters.

It reveals itself just as wholly and just as much in one oak as in millions. Their number, their multiplication in space and time, has no meaning at all with regard to it. It has meaning only with regard to the multiplicity of the individuals that know in space and time and are themselves multiplied and scattered in it. And their multiplicity in turn concerns only its appearance, not it. So one could also assert that if, per impossibile, a single being, even the least, were wholly annihilated, the whole world would have to perish with it. Feeling this, the great mystic Angelus Silesius says:

“I know that without me God cannot live a moment: if I come to nothing, God must of necessity give up the ghost.”

People have tried in many ways to bring the immeasurable size of the universe closer to everyone’s grasp, and then taken occasion from this for edifying reflections, for example on the relative smallness of the earth and indeed of man. Then again, by contrast, they have reflected on the greatness of the mind in this so small man, who can work out, grasp, even measure that size of the world, and the like. All very well! Meanwhile, for me, in considering the immensity of the world, the most important thing is this: that the essence in itself, whose appearance the world is—whatever it may be—cannot have drawn out and divided its true self in this way in boundless space. This infinite extension belongs wholly to its appearance alone, while it itself is present whole and undivided in every thing of nature, in every living thing. So one loses nothing by stopping at any single thing, and true wisdom is not to be gained by measuring the boundless world or, still more to the purpose, by flying in person through endless space. It is gained rather by thoroughly investigating some single thing, seeking to know and understand fully its true and proper essence.

Accordingly, what has already forced itself on every student of Plato will be the subject of a detailed discussion in the next book: namely that those different stages of the objectification of the will, which, expressed in countless individuals, stand there as the unreached models of these, or as the eternal forms of things, do not themselves enter into time and space, the medium of individuals, but stand fast, subject to no change, always being, never having become, while those arise and pass away, always become and never are; that, I say, these stages of the objectification of the will are nothing other than Plato’s Ideas. I mention it here provisionally so as to be able from now on to use the word Idea in this sense. So with me it is always to be understood in its genuine and original meaning given to it by Plato, and one is not at all to think of those abstract products of the scholastically dogmatizing reason, to designate which Kant misused that word, already taken possession of by Plato and used by him most appropriately, as unsuitably as unlawfully. By Idea, then, I understand every determinate and fixed stage of the objectification of the will, insofar as it is thing in itself and therefore foreign to multiplicity. These stages relate to the single things as their eternal forms or models. The shortest and most compact expression of that famous Platonic dogma is given to us by Diogenes Laertius (III, 12): ὁ Πλατων φησι, εν τῃ φυσει τας ιδεας ἑσταναι, καθαπερ παραδειγματα· τα δ’αλλα ταυταις εοικεναι, τουτων ὁμοιωματα καθεστωτα. (Plato ideas in natura velut exemplaria dixit subsistere; cetera his esse similia, ad istarum similitudinem consistentia.) I take no further notice of that Kantian misuse: what is necessary about it stands in the Appendix.

26 As the lowest stage of the objectification of the will, the most general forces of nature present themselves. Some of them appear in all matter without exception, such as gravity and impenetrability. Others have divided the matter that exists at all among themselves, so that some rule over this matter, others over that, and by this very fact over matter that is specifically different, such as rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, chemical properties and qualities of every kind. In themselves they are immediate appearances of the will, just like the doing of man. As such they are groundless, like the character of man. Only their single appearances are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, like the actions of man. The forces themselves can never be called either effect or cause. They are the preceding and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects, through which their own essence unfolds and reveals itself. It is therefore senseless to ask for a cause of gravity or electricity. These are original forces, whose manifestations do go on according to cause and effect, so that every single appearance of them has a cause, which itself is again just such a single appearance, and which gives the determination that here that force had to manifest itself, to come forth in time and space. But by no means is the force itself the effect of a cause, nor the cause of an effect.—So it is also false to say: “gravity is the cause of the stone’s falling.” Rather the nearness of the earth is here the cause, since the earth pulls the stone. Take the earth away, and the stone will not fall, though gravity has remained. The force itself lies wholly outside the chain of causes and effects, which presupposes time, since it has meaning only in relation to time. The force, however, lies outside time too. The single change always has again an equally single change as its cause, not the force of which it is the manifestation. For that which always gives a cause its effectiveness, however countless times it may occur, is a force of nature. As such it is groundless, that is, lies wholly outside the chain of causes and altogether outside the territory of the principle of sufficient reason. It is recognized philosophically as the immediate objectivity of the will, which is the in-itself of the whole of nature. In etiology, here physics, it is shown as an original force, that is, qualitas occulta.

On the higher levels of the will’s objectivity, individuality stands out strongly. It does so most of all in human beings, as the great variety of individual characters, that is, as full personality, already expressed outwardly in a strongly marked individual physiognomy, which takes in the whole bodily build. No animal has individuality anywhere near this degree. Only the higher animals have a touch of it, and even in them the character of the species still entirely prevails, which is also why they have so little individual physiognomy. The further down we go, the more every trace of individual character is lost in the general character of the species, and the physiognomy of the species is all that remains. We know the psychological character of a species, and from it we know exactly what to expect of an individual. In the human species, by contrast, every individual has to be studied and fathomed separately. That is extremely hard if one wants to predict a person’s conduct with any certainty, because the possibility of pretense, which came only with reason, now exists. This difference between the human species and all the others probably goes together with the following fact. The furrows and convolutions of the brain are completely absent in birds and still very faint in rodents. Even in the higher animals they are far more symmetrical on the two sides, and more constant from one individual to the next, than they are in human beings [15]. We should also take it as a sign of that true individual character, which sets human beings apart from all animals, that animals look for satisfaction of the sexual drive without any noticeable choice. In human beings this choice is pushed so far, in an instinctive way that has nothing to do with reflection, that it rises to violent passion. Every human being, then, is to be seen as a specially determined and characterized appearance of the will, and even, in a way, as a separate Idea. In animals this individual character is missing on the whole: only the species still has a distinctive meaning, and the trace of individuality vanishes more and more the further the animals are from human beings. Plants, finally, have no individual peculiarities at all except ones that can be fully explained by external favorable [16] Wenzel, De structura cerebri hominis et brutorum 1812, ch. 3.—Cuvier, Leçons d’anat. comp. leçon 9, art. 4 and 5.—Vicq d’Azyr, Hist. de l’acad. d. sc. de Paris 1783, pp. 470 and 483. or unfavorable influences of soil and climate and other accidents. And so, in the inorganic realm of nature, all individuality finally vanishes completely. Only the crystal can still be seen, in a way, as an individual. It is a unity of striving in certain directions, seized by solidification, which makes the trace of that striving lasting. At the same time it is an aggregate of its core form, joined into a unity by an Idea. In just the same way a tree is an aggregate of the single shooting fiber, which shows itself, repeated, in every rib of the leaf, every leaf and every branch. In a way it lets each of these be seen as a plant of its own, feeding like a parasite on the larger one. So the tree, like the crystal, is a systematic aggregate of small plants, although only the whole is the complete presentation of an indivisible Idea, that is, of this particular level of the objectification of the will. Individual crystals of the same kind, however, can differ only in ways that outward accidents bring about. One can even make any kind form into large or small crystals at will. The individual as such, meaning one with traces of an individual character, is no longer found at all in inorganic nature. All its appearances are expressions of general natural forces, that is, of those levels of the will’s objectification that do not objectify themselves at all, as they do in organic nature, by way of a variety of individualities that each express the whole of the Idea only in part. They show themselves only in the species, and the species shows itself whole, without any deviation, in every single appearance. Time, space, multiplicity and being conditioned by a cause do not belong to the will, or to the Idea (the level of the will’s objectification), but only to the individual appearances of the Idea. So in all the millions of appearances of such a natural force, for example gravity or electricity, the force as such must show itself in exactly the same way, and only outward circumstances can modify the appearance. This unity of its nature in all its appearances, this unchanging constancy with which they occur whenever the conditions for them are present, following the thread of causality, is called a law of nature.

Once such a law is known from experience, the appearance of the natural force whose character is stated and recorded in the law can be determined in advance and calculated exactly. But it is exactly this lawfulness in the appearances of the lower levels of the will’s objectification that makes them look so different from the appearances of the same will on the higher, that is, clearer levels of its objectification, in animals, in human beings and in what they do. There, individual character comes out more strongly or more weakly, and the beings are moved by motives, which lie in knowledge and so often stay hidden from the onlooker. Up to now this has kept people from recognizing at all that the inner nature of both kinds of appearance is the same.

The infallibility of the laws of nature has something surprising about it, and at times even something that nearly makes one shudder, if one starts from knowledge of the particular and not from knowledge of the Idea. One could be amazed that nature never forgets its laws, not even once. Suppose a law of nature says that when certain substances meet under certain conditions, a chemical combination, a release of gas, or burning takes place. Then whenever those conditions come together, whether we arrange it or it happens entirely by chance (where the exactness is all the more startling for being unexpected), the particular event occurs at once and without delay, today as surely as a thousand years ago. We feel this wonder most vividly in rare events that happen only under very complex circumstances, but are foretold to us for those circumstances. For example, when certain metals touch one another in turn, together with an acidified liquid, thin leaves of silver placed between the two ends of this chain must suddenly go up in green flames. Or under certain conditions hard diamond turns into carbon dioxide. What startles us then is the ghostlike omnipresence of natural forces. We notice here what no longer occurs to us with everyday events: that the connection between cause and effect is really as mysterious as the one that people imagine between a magic formula and the spirit that, summoned by it, must appear. But suppose we have worked our way into philosophical knowledge. Suppose we see that a natural force is a particular level of the objectification of the will, that is, of what we too know as our own innermost nature. Suppose we see that this will, in itself and distinct from its appearance and the forms of that appearance, lies outside time and space. The multiplicity that time and space condition therefore does not belong to the will, or directly to the level of its objectification, the Idea, but only to the appearances of that Idea. And the law of causality has meaning only in relation to time and space, since within them it fixes the place of the multiplied appearances of the different Ideas in which the will shows itself, regulating the order in which they must occur. Suppose, I say, that in this knowledge the inner sense of Kant’s great teaching has dawned on us: that space, time and causality belong not to the thing in itself but only to appearance, and are only forms of our knowledge, not properties of the thing in itself. Then we will see that our amazement at the lawfulness and exactness with which a natural force acts, at the perfect sameness of all its millions of appearances, and at the infallibility with which they occur, really is comparable to the amazement of a child or a savage. Such a person looks for the first time through a glass with many facets at, say, a flower, wonders at the perfect sameness of the countless flowers that he sees, and counts the petals of each one separately.

So every general, original natural force is, in its inner nature, nothing other than the objectification of the will at a low level. We call each such level an eternal Idea, in Plato’s sense. The law of nature, however, is the relation of the Idea to the form of its appearance. This form is time, space and causality, which are necessarily and inseparably connected and related to one another. Through time and space the Idea multiplies into countless appearances. The order in which these enter those forms of manifoldness is firmly fixed by the law of causality. The law is, as it were, the standard for the boundary points between those appearances of different Ideas, by which space, time and matter are shared out among them. This standard therefore necessarily relates to the identity of all the matter that exists, which is the common substratum of all those different appearances. If the appearances were not all tied to that common matter, whose possession they have to share, there would be no need for such a law to settle their claims. They could all fill infinite space side by side, at the same time, through an infinite time. So it is only because all those appearances of the eternal Ideas are tied to one and the same matter that there had to be a rule for their entering and leaving. Otherwise none would make room for another. In this way the law of causality is essentially bound up with the law of the permanence of substance. Each gets its meaning only from the other, and space and time stand in the same relation to them. For time is the bare possibility of opposite determinations in the same matter, and space is the bare possibility of the same matter persisting under all opposite determinations. That is why, in the previous book, we explained matter as the union of time and space. This union shows itself as a change of accidents while substance persists, and the general possibility of that is exactly causality, or becoming. That is also why we said that matter is causality through and through. We explained the understanding as the subjective correlate of causality. We said that matter (and so the whole world as representation) exists only for the understanding, which is its condition and its bearer, as its necessary correlate. I say all this here only as a passing reminder of what was worked out in the first book. To understand the two books fully, one has to pay attention to the inner agreement between them. In the real world, will and representation are its two sides, inseparably united, and these two books have torn them apart so that each can be known more clearly in isolation.

It may not be superfluous to make clearer, with an example, how the law of causality has meaning only in relation to time and space and to matter, which consists in the union of the two. The law fixes the boundaries by which the appearances of natural forces divide possession of matter between them. The original natural forces themselves are immediate objectifications of the will, which as thing in itself is not subject to the principle of sufficient reason. They lie outside those forms, within which alone any explanation by causes has validity and meaning, and for that very reason such an explanation can never lead to the inner essence of nature.—For this purpose, imagine a machine built according to the laws of mechanics. Iron weights start the motion through their gravity. Copper wheels resist through their rigidity, and push and lift one another and the levers by their impenetrability, and so on. Here gravity, rigidity and impenetrability are original, unexplained forces. Mechanics states only the conditions under which they show themselves and come forth, and the way they do so, as they take control of particular matter, time and place. Now say a strong magnet acts on the iron of the weights and overpowers gravity. The motion of the machine stops, and the matter at once becomes the scene of a quite different natural force, magnetism, about which the explanation by causes likewise says nothing more than the conditions of its occurrence. Or else the copper disks of the machine are laid on zinc plates, with an acidified liquid let in between them. Immediately the same matter of the machine has fallen to a different original force, galvanism. Galvanism now governs it according to its own laws and reveals itself in it through its appearances, and about those appearances etiology can again state no more than the circumstances in which they show themselves and the laws they follow. Now we let the temperature rise and let pure oxygen in. The whole machine burns. That is, once again a completely different natural force, chemism, has at this time and in this place an undeniable claim on that matter, and reveals itself in it as an Idea, as a particular level of the objectification of the will.—Let the metal oxide produced in this way now combine with an acid. A salt forms, and crystals shoot out. They are the appearance of yet another Idea, which in turn is entirely unfathomable, while the occurrence of its appearance depended on those conditions that etiology knows how to state. The crystals weather away and mix with other substances, and vegetation rises out of them, a new appearance of the will.—And so one could follow the same persisting matter on into infinity, and watch how now this natural force, now that one, wins a right to it and unfailingly seizes it, in order to come forward and reveal its nature. The law of causality fixes this right, the point in time and space where it becomes valid, but the explanation based on that law goes no further. The force itself is an appearance of the will and as such is not subject to the forms of the principle of sufficient reason; that is, it is groundless. It lies outside all time and is everywhere present, and it seems to be waiting constantly for the circumstances in which it can come forward and take over that particular matter, displacing the forces that until then ruled it. All time exists only for its appearance and has no meaning for the force itself. For thousands of years chemical forces sleep in a piece of matter until contact with reagents sets them free. Then they appear. But time exists only for this appearance, not for the forces themselves. For thousands of years galvanism sleeps in copper and zinc, and they lie quietly next to silver, which must go up in flames as soon as all three touch under the required conditions. Even in the organic realm we see a dry seed keep for three thousand years the sleeping force that, when favorable circumstances finally arrive, rises up as a plant [17].

18 On September 16, 1840, at the Literary and Scientific Institution of the City of London, during a lecture on Egyptian antiquities, Mr. Pettigrew showed grains of wheat that Sir G. Wilkinson had found in a tomb near Thebes, where they must have lain for thirty centuries. They were found in a hermetically sealed vase. He had sown twelve grains and gotten a plant from them, which had grown five feet high and whose seed was now perfectly ripe. From the Times of September 21, 1840.—Likewise, at the Medico-Botanical Society in London in 1830, Mr. Haulton produced a tuberous root that was found in the hand of an Egyptian mummy Once this reflection has made the difference clear to us between a natural force and all its appearances, and once we have seen that the force is the will itself at this particular level of its objectification, that multiplicity, through time and space, belongs to the appearances alone, and that the law of causality is nothing other than the fixing of the place in time and space for the individual appearances, we will also recognize the complete truth and deep meaning of the teaching of Mallebranche about occasional causes, causes occasionelles. It is well worth the trouble to compare this teaching of his, as he sets it out in the Recherches de la vérité, above all in the third chapter of the second part of the sixth book and in the éclaircissements appended at the back for that chapter, with my present account, and to see the perfect agreement between the two teachings, despite so great a difference in the line of thought. Indeed, I must admire how Mallebranche was completely caught up in the established dogmas that his age forced on him irresistibly, and yet, in such chains and under such a burden, hit upon the truth so happily and so correctly, and knew how to unite it with those very dogmas, at least with their language.

For the power of truth is unbelievably great, and its endurance is beyond words. We find its frequent traces again in all dogmas, even the most bizarre and indeed the most absurd ones, of who may have been given it for some religious reason, so that it was at least 2000 years old. He had planted it in a flowerpot, where it grew at once and turned green. This is cited from the Medical Journal of 1830 in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Great-Britain, October 1830, p. 196.—“In the garden of Mr. Grimstone, of the Herbarium, Highgate, in London, there now stands a pea plant in full fruit. It grew from a pea that Mr. Pettigrew and the officials of the British Museum took out of a vase found in an Egyptian sarcophagus, where it must have lain for 2844 years.”—From the Times of August 16, 1844.—Indeed, the living toads found in limestone lead to the assumption that even animal life is capable of such a suspension for thousands of years, when it is brought on by hibernation and kept up by special circumstances. different times and countries. They are often in strange company and in odd mixtures, but they can still be recognized. Truth is then like a plant that sprouts under a heap of big stones but still climbs toward the light, working its way through with many detours and twists, misshapen, pale and stunted—but still toward the light.

Mallebranche is certainly right: every natural cause is only an occasional cause. It gives only the occasion, the prompt, for the appearance of that one indivisible will which is the in-itself of all things and whose step-by-step objectification is this whole visible world. Only the coming forth, the becoming visible, in this place and at this time, is brought about by the cause and is to that extent dependent on it. The whole of the appearance is not, and neither is its inner nature. That is the will itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason does not apply, and which is therefore groundless. No thing in the world has a cause of its existence simply and in general. It has only a cause because of which it is here, exactly here, and exactly now. Why a stone shows gravity at one moment, rigidity at another, electricity at another, chemical properties at another depends on causes, on outside influences, and can be explained from them. But those properties themselves—that is, its whole nature, which consists of them and therefore shows itself in all the ways just listed, so that it is in general the kind of thing it is, and that it exists at all—have no ground. They are the becoming visible of the groundless will. So every cause is an occasional cause. That is what we found in nature without knowledge. It is exactly the same where it is no longer causes and stimuli but motives that fix the point at which appearances occur, that is, in the actions of animals and human beings. For here as there it is one and the same will that appears. It differs enormously in the degrees of its manifestation, is multiplied in the appearances of those degrees and, with regard to them, is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, but in itself is free from all this. Motives do not determine a person’s character but only the appearance of that character, that is, the deeds, the outward shape of the course of their life and not its inner meaning and content. Those come from the character, which is the immediate appearance of the will and therefore groundless. Why one person is wicked and another good does not depend on motives and outside influence, such as teachings and sermons, and in this sense is simply inexplicable. But whether a wicked man shows his wickedness in petty injustices, cowardly intrigues and low villainies, carried out in the narrow circle of his surroundings, or whether as a conqueror he oppresses nations, plunges a world into misery and sheds the blood of millions—that is the outward form of his appearance, the unessential part of it, and depends on the circumstances fate put him in, on his surroundings, on outside influences, on motives. His decision in response to these motives can never be explained from them. It comes from the will, of which this man is the appearance. More on this in the fourth book. The way a character unfolds its qualities is entirely comparable to the way every body in nature without knowledge shows its own. Water stays water, with the properties that live in it. But whether it mirrors its banks as a still lake, or tumbles foaming over rocks, or, when made to by artificial means, shoots up as a long jet, depends on outside causes. One is as natural to it as the other. But according to the circumstances, it will show the one or the other, equally ready for everything, yet in every case true to its character and always revealing only that. In the same way every human character will reveal itself in all circumstances, but the appearances that result from it will be as the circumstances were.

27 All the reflections so far on the forces of nature and their appearances have made it clear to us how far explanation by causes can go and where it has to stop, if it does not want to fall into the foolish effort of tracing the content of all appearances back to their mere form, where in the end nothing but form would be left. So we can now also state in general what should be demanded of all etiology. It has to look for the causes of all appearances in nature, that is, the circumstances in which they always occur. Then it has to trace the appearances, which take many shapes under varied circumstances, back to what is at work in every appearance and is presupposed in the cause: the original forces of nature. It must tell correctly whether a difference in the appearance comes from a difference in the force or only from a difference in the circumstances in which the force expresses itself. And it must guard equally against two mistakes: taking for the appearance of different forces what is the expression of one and the same force under different circumstances, and, the other way round, taking for expressions of one force what originally belongs to different forces. This calls directly for judgment. That is why so few people are able to widen insight in physics, though all can widen experience. Laziness and ignorance make people inclined to appeal too early to original forces. This shows itself, with an exaggeration that resembles irony, in the entities and quiddities of the Scholastics. I would least of all want to have favored their reintroduction. Instead of giving a physical explanation, one may no more appeal to the objectification of the will than to the creative power of God. For physics demands causes, and the will is never a cause. Its relation to the appearance does not follow the principle of sufficient reason at all. Rather, what is will in itself exists, from the other side, as representation, that is, is appearance, and as such it obeys the laws that make up the form of appearance. So, for example, every motion, although it is always an appearance of the will, must still have a cause from which it can be explained in relation to a particular time and place, that is, not in general, according to its inner nature, but as an individual appearance. This cause is a mechanical one in the case of a stone and a motive in the case of a human being’s motion, but it can never be missing. The general, on the other hand—the common nature of all appearances of a given kind, that without whose presupposition the explanation from the cause would have neither sense nor meaning—is the general natural force. In physics it has to stay as a qualitas occulta, exactly because here the explanation by causes ends and the metaphysical explanation begins. But the chain of causes and effects is never broken off by an original force to which one would have to appeal. It does not run back to such a force as its first link. Rather, the nearest link in the chain, just as much as the most remote, already presupposes the original force, and otherwise could explain nothing. A series of causes and effects can be the appearance of the most different kinds of forces, whose successive entry into visibility is guided by that series, as I explained above with the example of a metal machine. But the difference between these original forces, which cannot be derived from one another, does not at all break the unity of that chain of causes or the connection between all its links. The etiology of nature and the philosophy of nature never harm each other. They go side by side, looking at the same object from different points of view. Etiology gives an account of the causes that necessarily brought about the individual appearance to be explained. As the basis of all its explanations, it points out the general forces that are active in all these causes and effects. It determines these forces exactly, their number and their differences, and then all the effects in which each force comes out differently according to the difference in circumstances, always in line with its own particular character, which it unfolds by an infallible rule called a law of nature. As soon as physics has done all this completely in every respect, it will have reached its completion. Then no force in inorganic nature will be unknown any more, and there will be no effect left that has not been shown to be the appearance of one of those forces under certain circumstances, in accordance with a law of nature. Even so, a law of nature remains merely the rule, noticed in nature, by which nature proceeds each time under certain circumstances, as soon as they occur. So one can certainly define a law of nature as a fact stated in general terms, un fait généralisé. By that definition a complete presentation of all laws of nature would be only a complete register of facts.—The study of nature as a whole is then completed by morphology, which lists, compares and orders all the lasting forms of organic nature. About the cause of the coming into being of individual creatures it has little to say, since in all of them this cause is procreation, whose theory goes its own way, and in rare cases generatio aequivoca. Strictly speaking, though, the way all the low levels of the will’s objectivity, the physical and chemical appearances, come forth in particular cases belongs to this last as well, and stating the conditions for this coming forth is exactly that task of etiology. Philosophy, by contrast, looks everywhere, nature included, only at the general. The original forces themselves are its object here, and in them it recognizes the different levels of the objectification of the will, which is the inner nature, the in-itself, of this world, a world that philosophy, when it leaves that will aside, declares to be the mere representation of the subject.—But suppose etiology, instead of preparing the way for philosophy and backing up its teachings with examples of their application, thinks its aim is to deny all original forces, except perhaps one, the most general, such as impenetrability, which it imagines it understands from the ground up, and so tries to trace all the others back to it by force. Then it removes its own foundation, and can give only error instead of truth. The content of nature is now pushed aside by form. Everything is credited to the circumstances that act on things, and nothing to the inner nature of things. If this route actually succeeded, then, as already said, a sum in arithmetic would in the end solve the riddle of the world. And one takes this route when, as already mentioned, all physiological effect is to be traced back to form and mixture, to electricity, say, and electricity in turn to chemism, and chemism to mechanism. The last of these was, for example, the mistake of Descartes and of all the atomists, who traced the motion of the heavenly bodies back to the impact of a fluid, and qualities back to the cohesion and shape of atoms, and worked toward declaring all the appearances of nature to be mere phenomena of impenetrability and cohesion. Although people have given this up, the electrical, chemical and mechanical physiologists of our own day do the same thing. They stubbornly want to explain the whole of life and all the functions of the organism from the “form and mixture” of its components. That the aim of physiological explanation is to trace organic life back to the general forces that physics studies can still be found stated in Meckel’s Archiv für Physiologie, 1820, vol. 5, p. 185.—Lamarck too, in his Philosophie zoologique, vol. 2, ch. 3, declares life to be a mere effect of heat and electricity: le calorique et la matière électrique suffisent parfaitement pour composer ensemble cette cause essentielle de la vie (p. 16). By that, heat and electricity would really be the thing in itself, and the animal and plant world its appearance. The absurdity of this view stands out glaringly on page 306 and the pages after it in that work. It is well known that in the most recent times all those views, so often exploded, have appeared again with renewed boldness. At bottom, if one looks at it closely, they rest on the assumption that the organism is only an aggregate of appearances of physical, chemical and mechanical forces, which came together here by chance and produced the organism, as a sport of nature with no further meaning. The organism of an animal or of a human being would then, philosophically considered, not be the presentation of an Idea of its own, that is, not itself the immediate objectivity of the will at a particular higher level. Rather, only those Ideas that objectify the will in electricity, in chemism and in mechanism would appear in it. The organism would therefore be blown together by chance out of the meeting of these forces, as the shapes of humans and animals are blown together out of clouds or stalactites, and so would be in itself of no further interest.—We will see shortly, however, how far applying physical and chemical kinds of explanation to the organism may still be allowed and useful within certain limits. I will show that the vital force does use and make use of the forces of inorganic nature, but by no means consists of them, any more than the smith consists of hammer and anvil. That is why even the extremely simple life of plants will never be explained from them, from capillary force and endosmosis, say, let alone animal life.

The following reflection prepares the way for us to that rather difficult discussion.

It is true, in light of everything said, that natural science goes astray when it tries to reduce the higher grades of the will’s objectivity to lower ones. Failing to see and denying original forces of nature that exist in their own right is just as wrong as assuming, without grounds, special forces where there is only a particular way in which already known forces appear. Kant is therefore right to say that it is absurd to hope for a Newton of the blade of grass. That would mean someone who could trace the blade of grass back to appearances of physical and chemical forces, of which it would then be only the chance lump, a mere freak of nature. In it no special Idea would appear. That is, the will would not reveal itself directly at a higher and special grade, but only as it does in the appearances of inorganic nature, and by chance in this form. The Scholastics would never have allowed anything of the kind. They would have been quite right to say that it would be a complete denial of the forma substantialis and a degrading of it to a forma accidentalis. For Aristotle’s forma substantialis denotes exactly what I call the grade of the will’s objectification in a thing.—On the other hand, we must not overlook that in all Ideas, that is, in all forces of inorganic nature and all forms of organic nature, it is one and the same will that reveals itself, that is, enters the form of representation, the objectivity. Its unity must therefore also make itself known through an inner kinship among all its appearances. This kinship shows itself at the higher grades of its objectivity, where the whole appearance is clearer. In the plant and animal kingdoms it shows itself through the analogy that runs through all forms, the basic type that turns up again in all appearances. For this reason that type has become the guiding principle of the excellent zoological systems that came from the French in this century. It is demonstrated most fully in comparative anatomy, as l’unité de plan, l’uniformité de l’élément anatomique. Finding it has also been the main business, or at least certainly the most praiseworthy effort, of the nature philosophers of Schelling’s school. They even have some merit in this, although in many cases their hunt for analogies in nature degenerates into mere cheap wit. But they were right to show this general kinship and family likeness in the Ideas of inorganic nature too, for example between electricity and magnetism, whose identity was established later, between chemical attraction and gravity, and the like. They especially drew attention to this: polarity, that is, the splitting of one force into two activities that differ in kind, oppose each other and strive to reunite, which mostly shows itself in space too, as a moving apart in opposite directions, is a basic type of almost all appearances of nature, from the magnet and the crystal to man. In China, though, this knowledge has been current since the oldest times, in the doctrine of the opposition of Yin and Yang.—Indeed, because all things of the world are the objectivity of one and the same will, and so are identical in their inner nature, that unmistakable analogy among them must exist. And in every less perfect thing there must already show the trace, hint and disposition of the nearest more perfect one. Moreover, since all those forms belong only to the world as representation, we can even assume that in the most general forms of representation, in this real framework of the appearing world, that is, in space and time, the basic type, the hint and disposition of everything that fills the forms can be found and demonstrated. A dim knowledge of this seems to have given rise to the Kabbala and to the whole mathematical philosophy of the Pythagoreans, and also of the Chinese in the Y-king. And in that school of Schelling too, among their many efforts to bring out the analogy between all appearances of nature, we find some attempts, though unlucky ones, to derive laws of nature from the mere laws of space and time. Still, one cannot know how far a mind of genius will someday carry out both efforts.

We must never lose sight of the difference between appearance and thing in itself. So the identity of the will objectified in all Ideas must never be twisted (since it has definite grades of its objectivity) into an identity of the single Ideas themselves in which it appears. For example, chemical or electrical attraction may never be traced back to attraction by gravity, even if their inner analogy is recognized and the former can be seen, so to speak, as higher powers of the latter. In the same way, the inner analogy in the structure of all animals gives no right to mix up and identify the species, or to declare the more perfect ones to be varieties of the less perfect. And finally, physiological functions can never be traced back to chemical or physical processes. Even so, to justify this procedure within certain limits, we can assume the following with much probability.

Suppose several appearances of the will, at the lower grades of its objectification, that is, in the inorganic, come into conflict with one another, each wanting to seize the available matter by following the thread of causality. Then from this struggle the appearance of a higher Idea arises. It overpowers all the less perfect ones that were there before, but in such a way that it lets their essence continue in a subordinate way, by taking an analogue of it into itself. This process can be understood only from the identity of the appearing will in all Ideas and from its striving toward ever higher objectification. So, for example, in the hardening of bones we see an unmistakable analogue of crystallization, which originally governed the lime, although ossification can never be traced back to crystallization. The analogy shows more weakly in the hardening of flesh. Likewise the mixing of the fluids in the animal body and secretion are an analogue of chemical mixing and separation. The laws of chemistry even go on working in them, but in a subordinate way, much modified, overpowered by a higher Idea. So purely chemical forces outside the organism will never produce such fluids. Chemistry calls it Encheiresin naturae, mocks itself and doesn’t know how.

The more perfect Idea that comes out of such a victory over several lower Ideas, or objectifications of the will, takes into itself from each one it has overpowered an analogue raised to a higher power. Precisely through this it gains a wholly new character. The will objectifies itself in a new, clearer way. There arises, originally by generatio aequivoca, later by assimilation to the germ already present, organic fluid, plant, animal, man. So out of the struggle of lower appearances comes the higher one, which swallows them all up but also fulfills the striving of them all to a higher degree.—So the law already rules here: serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.

I wish I had been able to overcome, by the clearness of my presentation, the obscurity that clings to the subject matter of these thoughts. But I see very well that the reader’s own reflection must come a long way to help me if I am not to go either uncomprehended or misunderstood.—On the view given here, we can indeed show traces of chemical and physical ways of acting in the organism, but we can never explain it from them. It is by no means a phenomenon produced by the joint working of such forces, and so by chance. It is a higher Idea that has subjected those lower ones to itself by overpowering assimilation. For the one will that objectifies itself in all Ideas is striving for the highest possible objectification. Here it gives up the lower grades of its appearance, after a conflict among them, so as to appear all the more powerfully at a higher one. No victory without a fight. The higher Idea, or objectification of the will, can step forth only by overpowering the lower ones, so it suffers their resistance. Though brought into servitude, they still strive to reach an independent and full expression of their essence. A magnet that has lifted a piece of iron keeps up a constant fight with gravity. Gravity, as the lowest objectification of the will, has a more original right to the matter of that iron. In this steady fight the magnet even grows stronger, since the resistance, so to speak, spurs it to greater effort. In the same way every appearance of the will, including the one that presents itself in the human organism, keeps up a lasting fight against the many physical and chemical forces which, as lower Ideas, have an earlier right to that matter. That is why the arm sinks after one has held it up for a while by overpowering gravity. That is why the comfortable feeling of health, which expresses the victory of the Idea of the self-aware organism over the physical and chemical laws that originally govern the fluids of the body, is so often interrupted. In fact it is always accompanied by some discomfort, greater or smaller, which comes from the resistance of those forces. Because of it, even the vegetative part of our life is constantly tied to a faint suffering. That is also why digestion depresses all animal functions: it claims the whole vital force to overpower chemical forces of nature by assimilation. That, then, is why physical life is a burden at all, why sleep is necessary and finally death. In the end, helped by circumstances, those subjugated forces of nature win back from the organism the matter that was taken from them, since the organism itself has been tired out by its constant victory. They then reach the unhindered presentation of their essence. So one can also say that every organism presents the Idea of which it is the image only after subtracting the part of its force that is spent on overpowering the lower Ideas that dispute the matter with it. This seems to have been in Jakob Böhm’s mind when he says somewhere that all bodies of men and animals, indeed all plants, are really half dead. Now, depending on how far the organism succeeds in overpowering those forces of nature, which express the lower grades of the will’s objectivity, it becomes a more perfect or less perfect expression of its Idea. That is, it stands nearer or farther from the ideal to which beauty belongs in its species.

So everywhere in nature we see strife, struggle and the swing of victory. In this we will also come to see more clearly the will’s essential division against itself. Every grade of the will’s objectification disputes matter, space and time with the others. Matter that lasts must keep changing its form. Following the thread of causality, mechanical, physical, chemical and organic appearances greedily press forward to show themselves. They tear the matter away from each other, since each wants to reveal its Idea. This strife can be traced through the whole of nature. Indeed, nature exists only through it: ει γαρ μη ην το νεικος εν τοις πραγμασιν, εν αν ην απαντα, ως φησιν Εμπεδοκλης· (nam si non inesset in rebus contentio, unum omnia essent, ut ait Empedocles. Arist. Metaph. B., 5). And this strife is itself only the revelation of the will’s essential division against itself. This universal struggle becomes most plainly visible in the animal world. The animal world has the plant world as its food, and within it each animal in turn becomes the prey and food of another. That is, the matter in which its Idea presented itself must be given up to present another. Each animal can keep its existence only by constantly canceling out some other’s. So the will to life everywhere feeds on itself and, in different shapes, is its own food. In the end the human race, because it overpowers all the others, looks on nature as a product made for its use. Yet this same race, as we will find in the fourth book, also shows that struggle, that self-division of the will, in itself with the most fearful clarity, and becomes homo homini lupus. Meanwhile we will recognize the same strife and the same overpowering at the low grades of the will’s objectivity too. Many insects (especially the ichneumon flies) lay their eggs on the skin, even inside the body, of other insects’ larvae. Slowly destroying the larva is the first work of the brood when it crawls out. The young polyp grows out of the old one like a branch and later separates from it. While it is still attached, it already fights with the old one over the prey that offers itself, so that each tears it from the other’s mouth (Trembley, Polypod. II, p. 110, and III, p. 165). The most glaring example of this kind is the bulldog ant in Australia. If you cut one in two, a fight begins between the head part and the tail part. The head attacks the tail with its jaws, and the tail defends itself bravely by stinging the head. The fight usually lasts half an hour, until they die or other ants drag them away. This happens every time. (From a letter of Howitt, in the W. Journal, printed in Galignani’s Messenger, 17 Nov. 1855.) On the banks of the Missouri one sometimes sees a mighty oak wound round, bound and laced, trunk and all branches, by a gigantic wild vine, so that it must wither as if choked. The same shows itself even at the lowest grades. For example, it shows itself where water and carbon are changed into plant sap by organic assimilation, or where plant or bread is changed into blood. It shows itself everywhere that animal secretion goes on, with the chemical forces held down to a subordinate way of acting. It also shows itself in inorganic nature, as when crystals shooting out meet, cross and disturb one another so that they cannot show the purely crystallized form. Nearly every geode is the image of such a struggle of the will at that very low grade of its objectification. Or it shows itself when a magnet forces magnetism on iron, in order to present its Idea there too. Or when galvanism overpowers the elective affinities, breaks down the firmest compounds and cancels the chemical laws so completely that the acid of a salt split at the negative pole must go to the positive pole. It cannot combine with the alkalis it passes through on the way, nor even redden the litmus it meets. On the large scale the struggle shows in the relation between a central body and its planet. The planet, though definitely dependent, still resists, just as the chemical forces do in the organism. From this comes the constant tension between centripetal and centrifugal force, which keeps the structure of the universe in motion. That tension is itself already an expression of the universal struggle, essential to the will’s appearance, which we are now looking at. For every body must be regarded as the appearance of a will, and will necessarily presents itself as a striving. So the original state of every world body balled into a sphere cannot be rest. It must be motion, a striving forward into infinite space, without rest and without goal. Neither the law of inertia nor the law of causality stands against this. According to the law of inertia, matter as such is indifferent to rest and motion. So motion can be its original state just as well as rest can. Hence if we find it in motion, we have no more right to assume that a state of rest came before and to ask for the cause of the start of motion than we would have, if we found it at rest, to assume a motion before it and ask for the cause of its being canceled. So there is no first push to look for to explain the centrifugal force. In the planets, on Kant’s and Laplace’s hypothesis, it is a leftover of the original rotation of the central body, from which they separated when it contracted. Motion is essential to the central body itself. It still rotates and at the same time flies on through endless space, or perhaps circles around a larger central body that we cannot see. This view agrees entirely with the astronomers’ guess of a central sun. It also agrees with the observed advance of our whole solar system, and perhaps of the whole star cluster to which our sun belongs. From this we can finally infer a general advance of all fixed stars, together with the central sun. In infinite space this loses all meaning (since motion in absolute space does not differ from rest). Just by that, as already by the striving and flying without goal, it becomes the expression of that nothingness, that lack of any final purpose, which at the end of this book we will have to ascribe to the will’s striving in all its appearances. That is also why endless space and endless time had to be the most general and essential forms of its whole appearance, since the appearance exists to express its whole nature.—Finally, we can recognize the struggle of all appearances of the will against each other, which we are considering, even in mere matter as such. That holds insofar as Kant has correctly stated the essence of its appearance as repulsive force and attractive force. So matter too exists only in a struggle of forces working against each other. Suppose we set aside all chemical difference in matter. Or suppose we think back so far in the chain of causes and effects that there is as yet no chemical difference. Then what is left is mere matter, the world balled into a sphere. Its life, that is, its objectification of the will, is then that struggle between the force of attraction and the force of repulsion. Attraction is gravity, pressing from all sides to the center. Repulsion is impenetrability, whether through rigidity or elasticity, resisting it. This steady pressure and resistance can be regarded as the objectivity of the will at the very lowest grade, and it already expresses the will’s character there.

So here, at the lowest grade, we would see the will present itself as a blind urge, a dark, dull drive, far from anything that can be directly known. This is the simplest and weakest way it objectifies itself. As such a blind urge and striving without knowledge it still appears in the whole of inorganic nature. It appears in all the original forces that physics and chemistry are busy seeking out and learning the laws of. Each of these forces shows itself to us in millions of appearances that are all alike and lawful, and that give no sign of an individual character. They are only multiplied by time and space, that is, by the principium individuationis, as an image is multiplied by the facets of a glass.

Objectifying itself more clearly from grade to grade, the will still works with no knowledge in the plant kingdom, as a dark driving force. Here it is no longer causes in the proper sense but stimuli that are the link of its appearances. So it does finally even in the vegetative part of the animal’s appearance, in the production and development of each animal and the upkeep of its inner economy. There mere stimuli still necessarily determine its appearance. The ever higher grades of the will’s objectivity finally lead to the point where the individual that presents the Idea could no longer get the food it must assimilate by mere movement on stimuli. Such a stimulus has to be waited for, but here the food is more specifically determined. And with the ever-growing variety of appearances, the crowding and confusion have become so great that they disturb one another, and the chance on which an individual moved only by stimuli must depend for its food would be too unfavorable. So from the point where the animal has torn itself free from the egg or the mother’s womb, where it lived a vegetating life without knowledge, its food must be sought out and chosen. Because of this, movement on motives becomes necessary here, and because of the motives, knowledge. Knowledge therefore enters as an aid, μηχανη, required at this grade of the will’s objectification for keeping the individual alive and propagating the species. It comes forward represented by the brain or a larger ganglion, just as every other striving or determination of the objectifying will is represented by an organ, that is, presents itself to representation as an organ [19].—But with this aid, this μηχανη, the world as representation stands there at one stroke, with all its forms, object and subject, time, space, plurality and causality. The world now shows its second side. Until now merely will, it is now at the same time representation, object of the knowing subject. Up to this point the will followed its drive in the dark, with the highest certainty and without error. At this grade it has lit a light for itself. That was needed as a means to cancel a disadvantage that would arise for the most perfect appearances from the crowding and the complicated makeup of its appearances. Up to now its unerring certainty and lawfulness in inorganic and merely vegetative nature rested on this: it worked alone in its original essence, as blind urge, will. It had no help, but also no disturbance, from a second, wholly different world, the world as representation. This second world is only the image of the will’s own essence, yet of an entirely different nature, and it now cuts into the connection of its appearances. With that, their unerring certainty ceases. Animals are already exposed to illusion and deception. [20] On this see chapter 22 of the second volume; also my work “On the Will in Nature,” p. 54 ff. and pp. 70–79 of the first edition, or p. 46 ff. and pp. 63–72 of the second. They have only perceptual representations, however, no concepts and no reflection. So they are tied to the present and cannot take the future into account.—It seems that this knowledge without reason was not enough for its purpose in every case, and sometimes needed, so to speak, a helping hand. For there is a very remarkable phenomenon: the blind working of the will and the working lit by knowledge each reach over into the other’s territory, in two kinds of appearances, in a most surprising way. First, in the midst of the animals’ doing, which is guided by perceptual knowledge and its motives, we find a doing carried out without them, and so with the necessity of the blindly working will. This is in the building instincts. Guided by no motive or knowledge, they look as if they produced their works even on abstract, rational motives. The other case, the opposite of this one, is where the light of knowledge, the other way round, penetrates into the workshop of the blindly working will and lights up the vegetative functions of the human organism: in magnetic clairvoyance.—Finally, where the will has reached the highest grade of its objectification, the knowledge of the understanding that dawned in animals is no longer enough. The senses supply the understanding with data, from which comes mere perception, tied to the present. Man is a complicated, many-sided, adaptable being, very needy and exposed to countless injuries. To be able to survive, he had to be lit by a double knowledge. A higher power of perceptual knowledge, so to speak, had to be added to it, a reflection of it: reason, as the faculty of abstract concepts. With reason came reflective awareness, which holds an overview of future and past. As a result came deliberation, care, the ability to act with forethought and independently of the present. Finally came fully clear awareness of one’s own decisions of the will as such. Already with merely perceptual knowledge, the possibility of illusion and deception entered. That did away with the earlier unerring certainty in the will’s driving without knowledge. So instinct and the building instinct, as expressions of will without knowledge, had to come to its help in the midst of those guided by knowledge. With the arrival of reason, however, that certainty and unfailing reliability of the will’s expressions is almost entirely lost. (At the other extreme, in inorganic nature, it even appears as strict lawfulness.) Instinct withdraws completely. Deliberation, which must now replace everything, gives birth, as set out in the first book, to wavering and uncertainty. Error becomes possible, and in many cases it prevents the adequate objectification of the will in deeds. For the will has already taken its definite and unchangeable direction in the character, and willing itself comes about unfailingly in line with that character, on the occasion of the motives. Even so, error can falsify its expressions, because then delusory motives flow in like real ones and cancel them out [21]: for example, superstition may slip in imagined motives that force a man to a way of acting exactly opposite to how his will would otherwise express itself in the circumstances at hand. Agamemnon slaughters his daughter. A miser gives alms out of pure egoism, hoping to be paid back a hundredfold someday. And so on.

Knowledge in general, rational as well as merely perceptual, thus comes originally out of the will itself. It belongs to the essence of the higher grades of the will’s objectification, as a mere μηχανη, a means for keeping the individual and the species alive, like any organ of the body. Originally, then, it is meant to serve the will and to carry out its purposes, and it stays almost always completely in its service: in all animals and in nearly all men. Yet in the third book we will see how, in single men, knowledge can escape this servitude, throw off its yoke and exist purely for itself, free of all purposes of willing, as a mere clear mirror of the world. From this art comes. Finally, in the fourth book, we will see how, when this kind of knowledge acts back on the will, the self- [22] The Scholastics therefore said quite rightly: Causa finalis movet non secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. See Suarez, Disp. metaph. disp. XXIII, sect. 7 et 8. cancellation of the will can come about. This is resignation, which is the final goal, indeed the innermost essence, of all virtue and holiness, and the redemption from the world.

28 We have looked at the great variety and difference of the appearances in which the will objectifies itself. Indeed, we have seen their endless and unreconcilable struggle against one another. Even so, as our whole account up to now shows, the will itself, as thing in itself, is by no means included in that plurality and that change. The difference among the (Platonic) Ideas, that is, the grades of objectification; the multitude of individuals in which each of these presents itself; the struggle of forms over matter: none of this touches the will. It is only the way the will is objectified. Only through that does it have an indirect relation to the will, by which it belongs to the expression of the will’s essence for representation. A magic lantern shows many different pictures, yet it is one and the same flame that makes them all visible. In the same way, in all the various appearances that fill the world side by side, or crowd each other out one after another as events, it is still only the one will that appears. All of it is that will’s visibility and objectivity, and the will itself stays unmoved in the midst of all that change. It alone is the thing in itself. All objects, however, are appearance, phenomenon, to speak in Kant’s language.—In man, as a (Platonic) Idea, the will finds its clearest and most perfect objectification. Even so, this alone could not express its essence. The Idea of man, to appear with its proper meaning, could not present itself alone and cut off. It had to be accompanied by the series of grades going down through all the forms of animals, through the plant kingdom, to the inorganic. Only all of them together complete the full objectification of the will. The Idea of man presupposes them, as the blossoms of a tree presuppose leaves, branches, trunk and root. They form a pyramid whose peak is man. If one likes comparisons, one can also say: their appearance goes with man’s as necessarily as full light goes with the gradual shades of all the half-shadows through which it fades into darkness. Or one can call them the echo of man and say: animal and plant are the descending fifth and third of man, and the inorganic kingdom is the lower octave. The full truth of this last comparison will only become clear when, in the next book, we try to get to the bottom of the deep significance of music. There it will be shown how the melody, moving on connectedly in high, light, quick tones, is in a certain sense to be seen as representing the life and striving of man, which has coherence through reflection. The unconnected ripieno voices and the heavy, slow-moving bass, out of which comes the harmony needed to complete music, then portray the rest of animal and knowledgeless nature. But that belongs in its own place, where it will no longer sound so paradoxical.—But we also find that inner necessity of the series of grades of its appearances, which cannot be separated from the adequate objectivity of the will, expressed in the whole of the appearances by an outer necessity. This is the necessity by which man needs animals to stay alive, these in turn, step by step, need one another, and then also plants, which again need the soil, the water, the chemical elements and their mixtures, the planet, the sun, the rotation and the orbit around it, the tilt of the ecliptic, and so on.—At bottom this springs from the fact that the will has to feed on itself, because there is nothing besides it and it is a hungry will. That is why there is the hunt, the anxiety and the suffering.

Knowing the unity of the will, as thing in itself, in the endless difference and variety of appearances is the only thing that truly explains the wonderful, unmistakable analogy among all productions of nature. It also explains the family likeness that lets us see them as variations on the same theme, a theme that is not itself given. In the same way, a clear and deep grasp of the harmony, the essential connection of all parts of the world and the necessity of their gradation that we have just considered will open to us a true and sufficient insight into the inner nature and meaning of the undeniable purposiveness of all organic products of nature, which we even presuppose a priori when we observe and judge them.

This purposiveness is of two kinds. One is inner: all the parts of a single organism agree with one another in such an ordered way that the preservation of that organism and of its species follows from it, and so appears as the purpose of that arrangement. The other is outer: a relation of inorganic nature to organic nature in general, or of single parts of organic nature to one another, which makes possible the preservation of the whole of organic nature, or of single animal species, and so confronts our judgment as a means to this end.

Inner purposiveness now enters the course of our inquiry as follows. By what we have said so far, all the differences of forms in nature and all the plurality of individuals belong not to the will but only to its objectivity and the form of that. It follows necessarily that the will is indivisible and wholly present in every appearance, although the grades of its objectification, the (Platonic) Ideas, are very different. To make this easier to grasp, we can regard these different Ideas as single acts of will, simple in themselves, in which its essence expresses itself more or less. The individuals are in turn appearances of the Ideas, that is, of those acts, in time, space and plurality.—Now at the lowest grades of objectivity, such an act (or an Idea) keeps its unity in the appearance too. At the higher grades, to appear, it needs a whole series of states and developments in time, which taken all together first complete the expression of its essence. For example, the Idea that reveals itself in some general force of nature always has only one simple expression, although this shows itself differently according to the outer circumstances. Otherwise its identity could not be demonstrated at all, which is done precisely by separating out the difference that springs merely from outer circumstances. In the same way the crystal has only one expression of life, its shooting into form, which afterward has its fully sufficient and exhaustive expression in the solidified form, the corpse of that momentary life. The plant, though, already does not express the Idea whose appearance it is all at once and through a simple expression. It does so in a succession of developments of its organs, in time. The animal not only develops its organism in the same way, in a succession of often very different shapes (metamorphosis); but the shape itself, although it is already the will’s objectivity at this grade, is still not enough for the full presentation of its Idea. That is completed only by the animal’s actions. In them its empirical character, which is the same in the whole species, expresses itself, and this is the full revelation of the Idea, which presupposes the definite organism as its basic condition. In man, the empirical character is already peculiar to each individual (indeed, as we will see in the fourth book, to the point of completely canceling the character of the species, namely through the self-cancellation of all willing). What is known as empirical character, through the necessary development in time and the breaking up into single actions that this conditions, is, when we leave out this temporal form of appearance, the intelligible character, in Kant’s term. Kant shows his immortal merit especially splendidly in pointing out this distinction and presenting the relation between freedom and necessity, that is, really between the will as thing in itself and its appearance in time [23]. The intelligible character therefore coincides with the Idea, or more properly with the original act of will that reveals itself in it. [24] See “Critique of Pure Reason, Resolution of the Cosmological Ideas of the Totality of the Derivation of Cosmic Events,” pp. 560–586 of the fifth and p. 532 ff. of the first edition, and “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, pp. 169–179; Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 224 ff. Compare my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 43. In this respect, then, not only the empirical character of every man, but also that of every animal species, indeed every plant species, and even every original force of inorganic nature, is to be seen as the appearance of an intelligible character, that is, of an indivisible act of will outside time.—In passing, I would like to point out the naivety with which every plant states its whole character and lays it open through its mere shape, revealing its whole being and willing. That is what makes the physiognomies of plants so interesting. An animal, to be known by its Idea, has to be watched in its doings and goings-on, and man has to be thoroughly investigated and put to the test, since reason makes him capable of pretense to a high degree. The animal is more naive than man by exactly as much as the plant is more naive than the animal. In the animal we see the will to life, so to speak, more naked than in man. In man it is clothed over with so much knowledge, and veiled besides by the ability to pretend, that its true nature comes to light almost only by chance and here and there. In the plant it shows itself quite naked, but also much weaker, as a mere blind urge to exist, without purpose or goal. For the plant reveals its whole nature to the first glance, and with perfect innocence, which does not suffer from the fact that it carries its genitals, which in all animals have been given the most hidden place, on display at its top.

This innocence of the plant rests on its lack of knowledge. The guilt lies not in willing but in willing with knowledge. First of all, every plant tells of its home, its climate and the nature of the soil it sprang from. So even someone with little practice easily knows whether an exotic plant belongs to the tropical or the temperate zone, and whether it grows in water, in a swamp, on mountains or on heath. Beyond that, every plant also expresses the special will of its species and says something that can be expressed in no other language.—But now to apply what has been said to the teleological view of organisms, so far as it concerns their inner purposiveness. In inorganic nature the Idea, which is everywhere to be regarded as a single act of will, also reveals itself in only a single and always identical expression. So one can say that here the empirical character shares directly in the unity of the intelligible one, and so to speak coincides with it. That is why no inner purposiveness can show itself here. In organisms, on the other hand, every organism presents its Idea through a succession of developments one after another, which is conditioned by a variety of different parts side by side. So the sum of the expressions of its empirical character is the expression of the intelligible one only when taken together. Yet this necessary side-by-side of the parts and one-after-another of the development does not cancel the unity of the appearing Idea, of the act of will that expresses itself. Rather, this unity now finds its expression in the necessary relation and linking of those parts and developments to one another, according to the law of causality. It is the single, indivisible will, and for that very reason wholly in agreement with itself, that reveals itself in the whole Idea as in one act. So its appearance, although it spreads out into a difference of parts and states, must still show that unity again in a thoroughgoing agreement among them. This happens through a necessary relation and dependence of all the parts on one another, by which the unity of the Idea is restored in the appearance too. Accordingly we now know those different parts and functions of the organism as means and purpose of one another reciprocally, and the organism itself as the final purpose of them all. Consequently, two things belong and are essential not to the appearing will as such, the thing in itself, but only to its appearance in space, time and causality (all of them shapes of the principle of sufficient reason, the form of appearance). One is the spreading out of the Idea, simple in itself, into the plurality of the parts and states of the organism. The other is the restoring of its unity by the necessary linking of those parts and functions, through their being cause and effect, and so means and purpose, of one another. They belong to the world as representation, not to the world as will. They belong to the way the will becomes object, that is, representation, at this grade of its objectivity. Anyone who has got to the sense of this discussion, which is perhaps somewhat difficult, will now really understand Kant’s doctrine. It is that both the purposiveness of the organic and the lawfulness of the inorganic are first brought into nature by our understanding, so that both belong only to the appearance, not to the thing in itself. The wonder mentioned above at the unfailing constancy of the lawfulness of inorganic nature is essentially the same as the wonder at the purposiveness of organic nature. For in both cases it is only the sight of the original unity of the Idea, which for the appearance had taken on the form of plurality and difference, that surprises us²⁵.

Now take the second kind of purposiveness, by the division made above, the outer kind. It shows itself not in the inner economy of organisms but in the support and help they get from outside, both from inorganic nature and from one another. In general, this too finds its explanation in the discussion just set out. For the whole world, with all its appearances, is the objectivity of the one, indivisible will, the Idea which stands to all other Ideas as the harmony to the single voices. So that unity of the will must also show itself in the agreement of all its appearances with one another. But we can raise this insight to much greater clearness if we go a little more closely into the phenomena of that outer purposiveness and agreement of the different parts of nature with one another. That discussion will at the same time throw light back on the previous one. We will get there best by considering the following analogy.

The character of each single man, insofar as it is thoroughly individual and not wholly contained in that of the species, can be seen as a special Idea, corresponding to a particular act of objectification of the will. This act itself would then be his intelligible character, and his empirical character would be [26] Compare “On the Will in Nature,” at the end of the section “Comparative Anatomy.” the appearance of it. The empirical character is wholly determined by the intelligible one, which is groundless will, that is, will that as thing in itself is not subject to the principle of sufficient reason (the form of appearance). The empirical character must deliver the image of the intelligible one in a course of life, and cannot turn out other than the nature of the intelligible one requires. But this determination reaches only the essential, not the inessential, part of the course of life that appears in this way. To this inessential part belongs the closer determination of the events and actions, which are the material in which the empirical character shows itself. These are determined by outer circumstances, which supply the motives to which the character reacts according to its nature. Since they can be very different, the outer shape of the appearance of the empirical character, that is, the definite factual or historical shape of the course of life, must follow their influence. That shape can turn out very different even though the essential part of this appearance, its content, stays the same. For example, it is inessential whether one plays for nuts or for crowns. But whether one cheats at the game or goes about it honestly is the essential thing. That is determined by the intelligible character, the other by outer influence. As the same theme can present itself in a hundred variations, so the same character can in a hundred very different courses of life. But however different the outer influence may be, the empirical character expressed in the course of life, however that turns out, must still objectify the intelligible one exactly, by fitting its objectification to the material of factual circumstances it finds.—We now have to assume something analogous to that influence of outer circumstances on the course of life, which is essentially determined by the character, if we want to imagine how the will, in the original act of its objectification, determines the different Ideas in which it objectifies itself. These are the different forms of natural beings of every kind, among which it divides its objectification, and which for that reason must necessarily have a relation to one another in the appearance. We must assume that among all those appearances of the one will there took place a general mutual adapting and accommodating to one another. As we will soon see more clearly, though, all determination of time has to be left out here, since the Idea lies outside time. So every appearance had to adapt to the surroundings it entered. And the surroundings in turn had to adapt to it, even if it takes a much later place in time. Everywhere we see this consensus naturae. So every plant is suited to its soil and climate. Every animal is suited to its element and to the prey that is to be its food, and it is also somehow, to some extent, protected against its natural pursuer. The eye is suited to light and its refrangibility, the lungs and blood to the air, the swim bladder to the water, the seal’s eye to the change of its medium, the water-holding cells in the camel’s stomach to the drought of African deserts, the nautilus’s sail to the wind that is to drive its little ship. And so it goes down to the most special and astonishing outer purposivenesses²⁷. Here, though, we must leave out all relations of time, since they can concern only the appearance of the Idea, not the Idea itself. Accordingly this way of explaining must also be used backward. We must assume not only that every species accommodated itself to the circumstances it found, but also that those circumstances, which came earlier in time, themselves took account in the same way of the beings that were still to come. For it is the one and same will that objectifies itself in the whole world. It knows no time, since this shape of the principle of sufficient reason belongs neither to the will nor to its original objectivity, the Ideas. It belongs only to the way the Ideas are known by individuals that are themselves perishable, that is, to the appearance of the Ideas. So in our present look at the way the objectification of the will divides itself into the Ideas, the order in time has no meaning at all. The Ideas whose appearances entered the order of time earlier, in line with the law of causality to which they are subject as appearances, have thereby [28] See “On the Will in Nature,” the section “Comparative Anatomy.” no precedence over those whose appearance comes later. Those later ones are in fact the most perfect objectifications of the will, to which the earlier ones had to adapt just as much as these did to them. So the course of the planets, the tilt of the ecliptic, the rotation of the earth, the distribution of land and sea, the atmosphere, light, warmth and all similar appearances, which in nature are what the ground bass is in harmony, accommodated themselves with a kind of foreboding to the coming species of living beings, whose bearers and preservers they were to become. In the same way the soil accommodated itself to the nourishment of plants, plants to the nourishment of animals, these to the nourishment of other animals, just as, the other way round, all these accommodated themselves to the others again. All parts of nature meet one another halfway, because it is one will that appears in all of them, while the order in time is wholly foreign to its original and only adequate objectivity, the Ideas (the next book explains this expression). Even now, when the species only have to keep themselves going and no longer to come into being, we see here and there such a foresight of nature reaching into the future, which really, so to speak, leaves the order in time out of account, an accommodating of what is there to what is still to come. So the bird builds the nest for young it does not yet know. The beaver builds a lodge whose purpose is unknown to it. The ant, the hamster and the bee gather supplies for the winter, which they do not know. The spider and the ant lion set traps, as if with deliberate cunning, for future prey that is unknown to them. Insects lay their eggs where the future brood will find food in the future. At the time of flowering, the female flower of the dioecious Valisneria unwinds the spiral coils of its stalk, by which it has until then been held at the bottom of the water, and so rises to the surface. At exactly that moment the male flower, which grows on a short stalk at the bottom of the water, tears itself off from the stalk. Sacrificing its life, it reaches the surface, where it swims about looking for the female flower. After fertilization the female flower then draws back down to the bottom by contracting its spiral again, and there the fruit develops²⁹. Here too I must mention again the larva of the male stag beetle, which bites the hole in the wood for its metamorphosis twice as big as the female does, to gain room for the future horns. On the whole, then, the instinct of animals gives us the best illustration of the rest of the teleology of nature. Instinct is an acting like acting from a concept of purpose, and yet wholly without one. In the same way, all the forming of nature is like forming from a concept of purpose, and yet wholly without one. For in the outer as in the inner teleology of nature, what we have to think of as means and purpose is everywhere only the appearance, spread apart in space and time for our mode of knowledge, of the unity of the one will, which so far agrees with itself.

Meanwhile the mutual adapting and accommodating of the appearances, which springs from this unity, still cannot wipe out the inner conflict set out above, which is essential to the will and appears in the general struggle of nature. That harmony goes only so far as to make possible the continued existence of the world and its beings, which without it would long since have perished. So it reaches only to the survival of the species and the general conditions of life, not to that of individuals. So by virtue of that harmony and accommodation, the species in the organic world and the general forces of nature in the inorganic world exist side by side and even support one another. But the inner conflict of the will, objectified through all those Ideas, shows itself in the unceasing war of extermination among the individuals of those species and in the constant wrestling of the appearances of those natural forces with one another, as set out above. The arena and the object of this struggle is matter, which they try to tear from each other, and also space and time, whose union through the form of causality is really matter, as shown in the first book³⁰.

31 Chatin, sur la Valisneria spiralis, in the Comptes rendus de l’acad. d. sc., No. 13, 1855.

32 On this see chapters 26 and 27 of the second volume.

29 I end here the second main part of my account. I hope that, as far as is possible in the very first communication of a thought never thought before—which therefore cannot be wholly free of the traces of the individuality in which it first arose—I have succeeded in conveying the clear certainty of this: that this world in which we live and are, in its whole nature, is through and through will and at the same time through and through representation; that this representation already as such presupposes a form, namely object and subject, and so is relative; and that if we ask what remains after taking away this form and all the forms subordinate to it, which the principle of sufficient reason expresses, this remainder, as something different toto genere from representation, can be nothing other than will, which is therefore the real thing in itself. Everyone finds himself to be this will, in which the inner nature of the world consists, just as he also finds himself to be the knowing subject, whose representation is the whole world. To that extent the world has existence only in relation to his consciousness, as its necessary bearer. Everyone is therefore, in this double regard, the whole world itself, the microcosm, and finds both sides of it whole and complete in himself. And what he thus knows as his own nature also exhausts the nature of the whole world, the macrocosm. So it too, like himself, is through and through will and through and through representation, and nothing more is left over. Here we see the philosophy of Thales, which looked at the macrocosm, and that of Socrates, which looked at the microcosm, coincide, since the object of both shows itself to be the same.—The whole knowledge communicated in the first two books will gain greater completeness, and with it greater certainty, from the two books still to follow. In them, I hope, many a question that our inquiry so far may have raised, clearly or dimly, will also find a sufficient answer.

For now, one such question may be taken up separately. It can really only be raised as long as one has not yet fully got to the sense of the account so far, and for just that reason it can serve to clarify it. It is this. Every will is will for something; it has an object, a goal of its willing. So what does that will finally want, or what does it strive for, the will that is presented to us as the essence in itself of the world?—This question rests, like so many others, on confusing the thing in itself with the appearance. The principle of sufficient reason, one of whose shapes is the law of motivation, extends to the appearance alone, not to the thing in itself. A ground can only ever be given for appearances as such, for single things, never for the will itself, nor for the Idea in which it objectifies itself adequately. So for every single movement, or any change in nature, a cause is to be sought, that is, a state that brought it about necessarily. But never for the force of nature itself, which reveals itself in that change and in countless similar appearances. So it is real lack of understanding, springing from lack of reflective awareness, to ask for a cause of gravity, of electricity, and so on. Only if one had shown that gravity and electricity were not original, special forces of nature but merely modes of appearance of a more general, already known force of nature could one ask for the cause that makes this force of nature produce the appearance of gravity or electricity here. All this was set out at length above. In the same way, every single act of will of a knowing individual (who is himself only appearance of the will as thing in itself) necessarily has a motive, without which that act would never occur. But the material cause only contains the determination that at this time, in this place, in this matter, an expression of this or that force of nature must occur. In the same way the motive determines only the act of will of a knowing being, at this time, in this place, under these circumstances, as something wholly single. It by no means determines that this being wills at all, or wills in this way. That is the expression of its intelligible character, which, as the will itself, the thing in itself, is groundless, since it lies outside the domain of the principle of sufficient reason. That is why every man also constantly has purposes and motives by which he guides his actions, and can always give an account of what he does in each single case. But if you asked him why he wills at all, or why he wants to exist at all, he would have no answer. The question would instead seem absurd to him. And in this the awareness would really speak out that he himself is nothing but will, whose willing in general therefore goes without saying and needs closer determination by motives only in its single acts, for each point of time.

In fact, the absence of every goal and every limit belongs to the nature of the will in itself, which is an endless striving. This was already touched on above, in mentioning centrifugal force. It also shows itself most simply at the very lowest grade of the will’s objectivity, namely in gravity, whose constant striving lies before our eyes, with the evident impossibility of any final goal. Even if all existing matter were united in one lump, as gravity wills, then inside that lump gravity, still striving toward the center, would go on fighting impenetrability, as rigidity or elasticity. The striving of matter can therefore only ever be checked, never fulfilled or satisfied. That is exactly how it is with all striving of all appearances of the will. Every goal reached is again the start of a new course, and so on without end. The plant raises its appearance from the seed through stem and leaf to blossom and fruit, which again is only the start of a new seed, of a new individual that again runs the old course, and so through endless time. The animal’s course of life is the same: procreation is its peak. After it is reached, the life of the first individual sinks, quickly or slowly, while a new one guarantees nature the preservation of the species and repeats the same appearance. Indeed, the constant renewal of the matter of every organism is also to be seen as the mere appearance of this constant urge and change. Physiologists are now ceasing to hold it to be a necessary replacement of the material used up in movement, since the possible wear of the machine can in no way be an equivalent for the constant inflow through nourishment: eternal becoming, endless flux, belongs to the revelation of the will’s essence. Finally, the same shows itself in human strivings and wishes. They always hold out their fulfillment to us as the final goal of willing, like a mirage. But as soon as they are reached, they no longer look like themselves, so they are soon forgotten, made obsolete, and really always put aside, though without admitting it, as vanished illusions. We are lucky enough if something is still left to wish for and strive for, so that the game of the steady passage from wish to satisfaction, and from this to a new wish, can be kept up. Its quick course is called happiness, its slow course suffering. Otherwise it falls into that standstill that shows itself as fearful, life-numbing boredom, a languid longing with no definite object, a deadening languor.—It follows from all this that where knowledge lights it up, the will always knows what it wants now, what it wants here. But it never knows what it wants in general. Every single act has a purpose; willing as a whole has none. In just the same way, every single appearance of nature is determined to occur at this place, at this time, by a sufficient cause, but the force that manifests itself in it has no cause at all, since that is a grade of appearance of the thing in itself, the groundless will.—The will’s only self-knowledge as a whole, however, is representation as a whole, the entire perceptual world. It is its objectivity, its revelation, its mirror. What it says in this capacity will be the subject of our further inquiry [33].

34 On this see chapter 28 of the second volume.

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Book II is part of The World as Will and Representation, Volume I by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is book 5 of 8 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.

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